Long overdue update

I was certainly not great at updating this blog over the training season, with my most recent post in December. I did not want this blog to become a journal of my struggles with knee injuries as it became last year, so I quietly went about my training cutting runs short when needed and slogged along hoping to get to Boston as healthy as possible.

Yesterday was the marathon, but before I delve into the race report I'd like to hit the highlights of the training season first.

• Despite not being able to run more than 10 miles before the race, I came close to a Personal Best at the Hyannis Half Marathon at the end of February. Running with a friend the whole way certainly helped. Unfortunately in the weeks following that I was not able to get much past 10 miles again. I had lots of lower mileage, high intensity workouts to keep my fitness strong, just couldn't quite log the miles on the road.



• Come the end of March, I teamed up with Cherie and Jess thanks to an introduction by last year's teammate Eileen for a FANTASTIC 21 miler. I learned Cherie was a teammate last year and I just hadn't had the chance to meet her. My longest prior run was 13.1 at Hyannis. I never would have thought this jump in mileage was possible, especially without walking any parts, but with awesome teammates anything is possible. We started slow and finished strong. I saw my last year's running partner Marcy at mile 17 and got totally jazzed and ate up those Newton hills at a half marathon pace and finished strong. Negative split, confidence was up for Boston.

Following the 21 miler, I couldn't stop coughing. The slight nagging cough I'd had over the past few weeks became full on bronchitis or possibly had progressed to walking pneumonia and I was down for the count for 2+ weeks. Taper was a hard stop. I got a couple of good short runs in the week before the marathon and I was ready to go yesterday.

The day started great, I was running with a High School and College classmate, Angela up through mile 8. We were keeping a pretty consistent pace around 10:08. A little faster than I planned to start out, but right on target with Coach's race plan for me if I was feeling good. The effort seemed easy, aided by those downhills so I went with it. I split up with Angela, I thought briefly while she visited her family and I went ahead to relieve myself from some excessive pre- race hydration down the road. Unfortunately the port-a-potty line was long and I must have missed Angela as she went by and we never did meet up (Anglea finished a full 1/2 hr ahead of me turns out). I lost a full 3 min plus waiting and for the next mile or so, my mile splits were nonsense and I started to run faster than I knew I was. Once I got a split it was sub 10 and I knew I was starting to get in trouble and needed to slow down. I did succeed in slowing down some through the next couple of miles, but between miles 14 and 15 I realized my early speediness and excessive dressing (black hat and light long sleeve under my singlet that I had shed a few miles back) had gotten the best of me and I needed to slip into survival mode taking short walk breaks when needed.

I suffered to keep the pace as close to possible to 10:30-10:40 range hoping to get a boost from my family just prior to mile 17. I was spent by the time I got there. They were happy for me as I was running my best Boston ever to that point but I was nauseous and I was fizzling. Looking back, I think I probably didn't push through the pain as much as I probably could have considering how I felt at the end of the race, but the nausea was new to me and I was afraid it could be from dehydration and I REALLY wanted to finish and not end up in the medical tent. Despite not meeting my plan A or plan B paces, I did still end up with a PR at 4:54. Not the 4:17-4:27 I longed for with plan A, not the 4:27-4:37 I hoped for in Plan B. But considering several long runs of only 10 miles, 1 at 13.1, and 1 at 21 I'm satisfied.

I think the slower finish than my goals is just a signal for me to keep me pushing to "Raise the Barr" for DFMC. Next year, I will be a volunteer year for me for DFMC. . . 6 in a row has taken a toll on this runner's right knee, but I will be back to the starting line until we find that ultimate finish line, a world without cancer.

Thanks for everyone's support and encouragement over the years. And congratulations to all my DFMC teammates!