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Boston – Here I come

It’s been a long time coming, but I am finally about to run Boston. I qualified nearly two-and-a-half years ago and had been thinking about qualifying for some time before that.

I have to admit that I’m a little bit surprised that I’m actually running Boston. It wasn’t until pretty late in my training for New York in 2006 that I realized that Boston was a possibility. The marathons I ran in the 1990’s weren’t anything special and I was never particularly fast. But during 2004 and 2005, I became a better runner and my NYC training runs showed me that I had the ability to qualify. I didn’t want to risk jinxing myself, so I barely mentioned it and tried not to think about it too much. Assaf helped me get across the finish line at New York in 3:13:08, plenty good enough to qualify as a 35 year old. I wanted to concentrate on Ironman Lake Placid in 2007 and so planned on running Boston in 2008. But (as faithful readers know) in late March 2008, my knee started bothering me and I had to pull out and got an injury exemption to run this year. That injury exemption was for one year only – if I didn’t run it this year, I’d have to re-qualify.

And even running this year was a little dicey. I spent a lot of the fall and winter in physical therapy and took a fair amount of time off from running. I tried massage, accupuncture, strength training, trigger point, foam rollers, chiropractors, Active Release Technique, Graston, Feldenkrais and multiple different physical therapists. I think that all of that helped me get better and get back to running, because beginning in December or so I was able to start consistently run-walking with a little running mixed in. But it wasn’t until I started seeing Ming Chew in late January that the pain really started going away. Ming Chew and the Ming Method were huge. I’ll write more about Ming after the race.

Anyway, back to today.

I leave for Boston first thing tomorrow morning. The race is Monday, April 20. My wave goes off at 10AM EST. (If you’re interested, and you should be, the pro women start at 9:30AM and the pro men go off at the front of the 10AM wave. This has the potential to be a good year for Americans in Boston – keep your eyes on Ryan Hall and Kara Goucher, both of whom could make a run for the win.)

In case you want to check on my progress during the race, you can go to www.baa.org and enter my bib number (6312) to follow along there.

Universal Sports Network will be showing the marathon online and live on TV… but I’m not sure what channel that is, and I know that we don’t get it on DirecTV here in LA.

I don’t know what to expect. I’m definitely not going to PR. I plan on running the first 10K or half-marathon straight through and then, assuming I need it, I’ll walk the water stations for the second half. In some recent track work, I’ve been able to comfortably maintain a sub-7:30 pace, even with a 30 second walk at the beginning of each mile. Last Sunday, I did a one mile warm-up and then did five one-mile intervals – at the beginning of each mile I walked along the track for 30 seconds. Walking for 30 seconds at the beginning of the mile adds about 15 seconds to each mile time. I wanted to do the first two a little faster than race pace, the third, fourth and fifth a lot faster.

My splits (including the 30 seconds of walking) were:
mile 1 – 7:23
mile 2 – 7:26
mile 3 – 7:15
mile 4 – 6:57
mile 5 – 7:12

That 6:57 mile was too fast. If you take out the first 30 seconds, that means I was running about a 6:42 pace. I wanted to see what it would feel like and while that pace wasn’t too much for this workout, it is way too much for 26.2.

I think I’ll be most comfortable between 7:15 and 7:23. But can I keep that up for the marathon? Only one way to find out!

I’ll try to post once or twice from Boston, but just in case, thanks again to everyone for your support, encouragement and for following along with me here!

Run – April 12
Distance: 6 miles + strides and stairs
Time: 58 minutes
Average heart rate: 150
Course: Drake Track Stadium, UCLA
Conditions: Sunny, warm, 60’s

Run/walk – April 14
Distance: 4.4 miles
Time: 34 minutes
Average heart rate: 155
Course: Drake Track Stadium, UCLA
Conditions: Overcast, mid-50’s

Swim – April 15
Distance: 2,515 yards (2,300 meters)
Time: 56 minutes

Run/walk – April 16
Distance: 4.1 miles
Time: 31 minutes
Average heart rate: 143
Course: West Hollywood
Conditions: Sunny, high-50’s