Tomorrow morning I head to Boston. Its a trip that has been a long time coming, and then suddenly it was upon me before I realized it. Running the Boston Marathon has been one of the bucket list goals in my life and it felt that I took a long time to get there, but tonight I’m packing my bags, foam rolling my legs and letting the realization of what I’m about to do sink in.
I’ve always been a runner, but more so the shorter distances. I knew I was a good sprinter with cutting speed from my ultimate frisbee days, and I discovered that I had a gift for endurance when I took up triathlon. But it was only as I progressed to long course triathlon, with the long term goal of completing an ironman that I began to train for marathon proper. My first marathon was last last year (Toronto Marathon, May 2016), and to be honest, I had no idea if I was going to be able to lay down a Boston Qualifying time or not. In the end, I did, in fact I bettered the BQ time for my age group by more than 5min, which was a confidence booster to say the least.
So here I am, after another long winter of training, working through the proverbial (yet also quite literal for me) blood, sweat and tears, needed to prepare for a world major marathon. (FYI the 6 world majors are Tokyo, Boston, London, Chicago, New York and Berlin).
Am I nervous? Yes. Excited? Yes. Prepared? I think so. This is my third marathon in less than 2 yrs. For this event, I trained for 3 months progressing up to a training peak of 33km, after which I tapered for 4 weeks, leading up to race weekend. I’ve included more hill training (both up and down) for this marathon, as I’ve studied the course lay out and considered the significant downhill portion for the first half of the course, followed by the Newtonian hills climb between km 26-34, including the infamous heartbreak hill at the 32km point. Although studying a course is no replacement for actual feet on the ground experience, it was the best I could do with my geographic limitations.
My race plan is to try not to burn myself out on the downhill portion, saving the necessary stamina to get up the hills between 26-34km, before heading back downhill to the finish. I’d love to run a PB of 3:30:00 (my current PB is 3:34:38), holding an average pace of 5:00/km (a little faster on the downhill 4:45, and slower uphill 5:15).
With all this said, everybody keeps reminding me to just take a deep breath, enjoy the run, and feed off the energy of the crowds which are supposed to be phenomenal! Also, to pack some extra toilet paper in my shorts just in case of emergencies on the way (Thanks Lynne, a seasoned BM veteran!).
If you're interested in following the race live on Monday, April 17th, there are a couple options. If you prefer TV, TSN2 will be providing coverage in Canada. Or if you prefer the internet, you can go to the Boston Marathon homepage: www.baa.org and live track the events and athletes (My bib# is 18337 and I start is the third wave at 10:50am).
So off I go... stay tuned for more updates on my road to the Boston Marathon!
You will have a great race. There is a lot of energy and it's easy to get carried away at first .... the excitement of the whole race is enough to zap the energy right out of you.
ReplyDeleteVery wise to play it safe in the first half .... you will not realize how pummeled your quads are from running downhill until you have the opportunity of running a few climbs - believe me, you will be embracing the change.
One of the things that was unexpected for me was the number of people .... this will help you towards the end because you can easily chose people to pass (I know you like doing this)!
However, don't forget to enjoy and embrace the experience. You worked hard to get there ..... whatever happens is bonus.
Have fun and drive safely.