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The picture captures it all — the joy, the pain, the tears.\u00a0 It’s the overwhelming elation I feel for accomplishing something I thought inconceivable.\u00a0 No more am I the scrawny, awkward, non-athletic teenager, nor am I the overweight and miserable 40-year-old.\u00a0 I AM A BOSTON MARATHONER.\u00a0 Here’s my story.<\/p>\n
Stats<\/strong> Training<\/strong> While Pfitz was indeed strenuous, I liked the plan and intended to follow it for Boston.\u00a0 However, I figured I wouldn’t try for a particular time.\u00a0 Sure, I wanted to finish strong but I also wanted to take in the experience.\u00a0 By the time I ran Royal Victoria I had become a Marathon Maniac, and the multiple-marathoning bug had hit.\u00a0 I ran three more marathons for the year after RVM, then ran another on Jan. 1 and the Goofy Challenge at Walt Disney World Jan. 10-11.\u00a0 I had no intention of running any others until Boston, but when I saw the Yakima River Canyon Marathon on April 4 was a Maniac reunion, I decided to run it as a training run for Boston.\u00a0 But I swore that would be it; HA!<\/p>\n By early February I was jonesing for another race, so my husband and I signed up for one on Feb. 8, then I ran my first 50K on Feb. 22.\u00a0 As a result I tossed out my plan to follow Pfitz’ 12\/55 program for Boston.\u00a0 His speed work beats me up, and considering all the races I was running my No. 1 priority was recovery.\u00a0 That said, come March I wanted to see if I had ANY speed left in me, so I entered the annual St. Patty’s Day Dash fully intent on racing it.\u00a0 While I was thrilled with my pace (about 8:20 — fast for me), I knew I could have gone faster if I had elbowed my way closer to the front.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n A couple of days later I ran almost 7 miles at an 8:37 pace.\u00a0 During that run my heel, which had been barking at me for several weeks, decided it had had enough.\u00a0 While I wasn’t sure if it was plantar fasciitis, I was definitely dealing with a bruised heel.\u00a0 I took the next four days off from running, focusing instead on cross-training.\u00a0 And despite admonitions from the owner of my gym, I raced a half marathon that weekend.\u00a0 While I missed my overall half PR by less than 40 seconds, again I was pleased with my effort.\u00a0 (The course somewhat mimics Boston in that you get a couple of killer hills at the very end).<\/p>\n Again I had to take several days off to nurse my heel, but I got new shoes for work and replaced the shoe inserts with green Superfeet.\u00a0 I also put the Superfeet into my running shoes, which helped tremendously.\u00a0 I was able to get in a few more runs before Yakima, but I took it easy and ran by feel.\u00a0 I then ran\/walked Yakima, finishing in just over 4:36.\u00a0 (That course also mimicked Boston with a 1.2-mile hill starting at Mile 22 that climbed almost 300 feet).<\/p>\n I came up with several goals for Boston, ranging from the “you’re freakin’ crazy” goal of another BQ or PR, to the more realistic 4:10-4:15 range, to the “You went out too fast, didn’t ya?” goal of 4:25-4:35.\u00a0 I was hoping to make this my third fastest race, which would mean finishing in under 4:15:19.\u00a0 Ever so optimistic, I printed out pace bands for a 4:05 and 4:10 marathon using a spreadsheet someone developed on the Runner’s World forum.<\/p>\n Boston — Pre-race<\/strong> In front of our B&B<\/em>: \n We spent Saturday doing the exact opposite of what’s recommended — walking all over town and the expo, eating and drinking far too much.\u00a0 I had to pick up a bib for a friend-of-a-friend, and at first it seemed a good idea to walk to his hotel to drop it off.\u00a0 But after walking almost two miles, I realized it wasn’t such a good plan.\u00a0 That evening we met up for pre-dinner drinks with Mary Jane and Richard from our Marathon du Medoc tour, then with folks from the Runner’s World forum at Beerworks, where — after consuming two, maybe three blueberry beers — I managed to lose my winter running coat.\u00a0 D’oh!\u00a0 (Thank goodness it’s spring and I won’t need it for several months).<\/p>\n The next day was much more reasonable.\u00a0 My husband ran the BAA 5K as a consolation prize, and I was there at the finish line to cheer him in (the winner came through in 14:28; Joan Benoit Samuelson was the third woman overall with a time of 17:43).\u00a0 I crashed after the race for a couple of hours, had lunch, got a massage, crashed again and then met up with some Taper Madness forum friends for a pasta dinner in town (we decided to forego the BAA pasta feed).\u00a0 As we were getting off the T at Copley I heard someone call out “Hey Maniac!” (I was wearing my Maniac jacket) and realized it was Frayed Laces<\/a>!\u00a0 We hugged and I asked her how her back was doing; while it was still sore she was going to run the race, albeit extremely slowly.\u00a0 Just as we were saying our goodbyes I heard my name called again; this time it was Roger from the Disney Running forum (I’m SUCH the social butterfly!).<\/p>\n My darling before the race:<\/em><\/p>\n \n Joan Benoit Samuelson crossing the finish line:<\/em><\/p>\n \n We got back to our B&B about 9 p.m.\u00a0 I had already set out all my running gear, so I immediately hit the hay.\u00a0 Despite the anxiety I had been feeling all week, I slept rather well.\u00a0 But I knew the alarm would be going off super early, as I decided to tag along with the other couple staying at our B&B.\u00a0 Paula Sue is a fellow Taper Madness forumite, and she and her husband were meeting up with their running club.\u00a0 One of the club members was a volunteer for loading the buses to Hopkinton and was saving a spot for us.\u00a0 Sweet!\u00a0 I figured I wouldn’t be as nervous if I were to hang around veterans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The picture captures it all — the joy, the pain, the tears.\u00a0 It’s the overwhelming elation I feel for accomplishing something I thought inconceivable.\u00a0 No more am I the scrawny, awkward, non-athletic teenager, nor am I the overweight and miserable 40-year-old.\u00a0 I AM A BOSTON MARATHONER.\u00a0 Here’s my story. Stats Official time: 4:15:48 Overall: 18202\/22849 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,3],"tags":[100],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beantown","category-race-reports","tag-113th-boston-marathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOfficial time: 4:15:48
\nOverall: 18202\/22849
\nGender: 6902\/9302
\nAge group (F45-49): 1066\/1456<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWhile I got through my first two marathons with minimal mileage using the run\/walk plan, I tried Pete Pfitzinger’s 18\/55 for my first BQ attempt at the North Olympic Discovery Marathon<\/a>.\u00a0 I missed my goal by 15 minutes, regrouped and BQ’d 10 weeks later with a 3:54:34 at a small Marathon Maniac-sponsored race called the Light at the End of the Tunnel<\/a> (I needed 4:00:59).\u00a0 I squeaked in another BQ in October 2008 at Royal Victoria<\/a> with a 4:00:26, so barring financial ruin I’ll be toeing the line again at Hopkinton in 2010.<\/p>\n
\nAlthough Boston would be my 15th marathon, my anxiety over the race was intense.\u00a0 It had less to do with going the distance — I knew I’d make it — but the logistics of getting there seemed daunting.\u00a0 I anguished over what to pack\/bring with me to Athlete’s Village.\u00a0 I had no idea how easy it would be to get around Boston (my husband and I stayed at a B&B in Brookline).\u00a0 I was also bummed my husband would not be joining me at the Village since he missed his BQ by a mere 18 seconds.\u00a0 (He kept threatening to bandit the race, but I somehow convinced him that wouldn’t be prudent.\u00a0 After all, I didn’t want my newfound friends in the RWOL Boston Forum to shun us.\u00a0 As it turned out, he ran his own version of Boston).<\/p>\n
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