Boston Marathon here I come. Five weeks to go. 20 miles in the bag. Nearly $6,000 raised for Dana-Farber. Two plus really hard weeks of training; two plus weeks of tapering down. And then see you at Hopkinton. As always, thanks to everyone for all their support! Been a great couple weeks of fundraising.
My top 10 comments from the week (okay, they are all from today.)
10. It was a miserable run. No euphemisms, no, “It wasn’t that bad.” This morning’s run was a long, wet, windy, painful, miserable run. There, I said it.
9. It was a very, very, very wet ride. The weather started off at about 42 degrees with a steady 15 mph wind and light vertical rain. By the time I was done, I have no idea what the temperature was but the wind was 20-25 mph with gusts and driving horizontal rain. Somewhere around mile 12, it stopped being fun.
8. And I ran this morning instead of Sunday because today was the GOOD day for weather. I can not be serious? Oh yes, I’m serious.
7. Still, I finished it. 20 miles. 3 hours and 12 minutes, with about 5 minutes of that for walking through water breaks/Gu-ing up/resting legs. That’s about 10 minutes off my ideal pace, but I was fading fast the last few miles and if I had six more to go, I would guess that I would have run/shuffled them in about 66-72 minutes which would put me at Boylston Street
6. I do get perverse pleasure from running in really crappy weather. Rain, snow, cold, heat? Bring it on. It’s what separates those who are training from the fair-weather sunshine seekers.
5. I’m looking forward to when I can be just a fair-weather sunshine seeker if I want.
4. Notice in my list of crappy weather that I didn’t say wind. I Hate the wind, and yes, I said “Hate” even though we don’t use that word in this house. Deal with it.
3. What I’m trying to get my arms around is how just 3 weeks ago, I could run 18.6 miles without hitting a wall and feel fresh throughout. And yet today, I hit a wall, at um, mile 2. Okay, not mile two, but really around mile 12-13 as I was doing my three miles around the track in an effort to prevent my left foot from hurting. As I think about it, I did just about everything wrong to prepare for the run, stemming mostly from my decision mid-day yesterday to do my long run today and not Sunday.
· I didn’t eat nearly enough for dinner last night. When I ate my last Gu at mile 17, I downed it like it was a steak. I was starving. But by then, it was too late and my legs had so little energy in them.
· I didn’t hydrate enough either. Normally, the day before I do a big run, I’m pounding water like a frat boy pounds beer. But because I only decided to run at 3 pm, I never caught up on my water intake.
· I didn’t sleep enough. The difference between 8+ hours and just under 7 is huge for me on big run days.
· I ran with my iPhone. I like working out with my iPhone but I no longer like running with it. It may cut down the boredom to have three hours of Pandora streaming in my ear, but it distracts me from concentrating on how I’m running.
· Too many laps on the track. It's a psychic drain to know that you've got 13 laps to do on the track. It was a good idea originally but its time has past. 20 miles with not an ounce of pain in my left foot -- plenty of pounds of pain elsewhere, but that's another story.
2. And then there was the wind. See above. There were times in the last mile when I’d turn into the wind and it would gust for 15-20 seconds and I felt I was doing everything I could to not go backwards.
1. The good news is that I can correct all of the above…. except the wind. Next week, it’s up to Newton for a taste of the Newton Hills and 14 miles with my friend and Boston Barrington
Happy running.
Congrats on 20 miles! I did my 20 today too, and it wasn't pretty either. But we did it! See you in Boston!
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