Tuesday, April 22, 2008

boston-mania

I ran the Boston marathon! I heard it was a tough course and it was. My plan was to start out at a 9 minute pace and then monitor my body throughout in order to decide if I would pick up the pace or not. I wasn't sure if my recovering hip injury would be an issue or not. My goal was to get to the finish line, enjoy the experience, and pace myself well enough to run the last three miles. My injury has had me running in the water for the last 6 weeks so I was not sure how things would go. I knew my aerobic engine was up to the task but I was not so sure about my legs.

The first half was easy and felt good. It was a joy to be out running a long run again for the first time in a while. Then fatigue and soreness started and it got to be less of a joy. The downhills had my quads exhausted by mile 17. I actually enjoyed the uphills and loved Heartbreak Hill because it was so long. It gave me a good chance to use all my strength from muscles other than my quads and I passed a lot of people on the uphills.

There were more spectators out there than at any race I have ever done. It was pretty much completely insane. People were cheering for nearly the entire 26 miles, and in the last 4 miles people were about 3 deep on both sides. At some points I kind of just wished for a quiet moment to find peace and get in my groove. I had to find my groove amidst people screaming in my ears. The last 5 miles were quite torturous as I worked hard to just get one foot in front of the other. My legs were not happy. I managed to keep a fairly steady pace by working extremely hard at the end. I fought to get in under four hours and I came in dead on 4:00:34. The last half mile up to the finish line was pure happiness. I felt no pain. I smiled and felt proud to have run the whole race. Just a few weeks ago I was doing 3 min run/1 min walk intervals to try to heal. I am healed and I ran smart. I feel really proud of how I am learning to deal with challenges and make things positive.

Now, let's rest up and bring on the core of Ironman training.

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