Boston Marathon Training

It's working, I'm doing it. I am going to be able to run 26 miles, I know it.

In hind sight I really wish I had been documenting my training from the start in this blog which has some how morphed into a life blog as opposed to just a fishing blog. I figure I can do a brief wrap up of what I have done so far and put down the rest from here on out.

To start, this is my first marathon ever. Two years ago I did the Cape Cod Half Marathon Trilogy and felt pretty good about it. Fast forward to November of this year and my wife sends me a link that Joslin Diabetes Center is looking for people to run the Boston Marathon to help them raise money. I believe her exact quote was a simple, "You should do this." I looked into it and after applying I found out a couple weeks into January that I was selected for the team. I quickly scrambled and looked up rookie marathon training schedules. There were many different ones and most being either 16 or 18 weeks. Since I was only 14 weeks away from the marathon I chose a 16 week plan that I thought looked doable. I had been running on a semi-regular basis, but mostly in the 3 mile range.

Right out of the gate I decided that I was going to train on hilly courses and avoid the bike path as much as possible. The three halves I did previously all kicked my butt and I think a lot of it was due to the hills I encountered that did not exist on the bike path I did all of my training on. Plus, I know that Boston is a notoriously hilly marathon course. With the help of MapMyRun.com I am able to plan my runs ahead of time and it only takes a couple minutes. The other thing that I decided was that I was not going to wear a watch and I did not care how long it took me to finish this marathon, just finish it.

Probably the worst run that I have done throughout all of my training during the past nine weeks was my 7 mile long run the first weekend. This is the only run that I had to walk during. I was glad that I did not get discouraged, I have not had to walk since.

Everything was running smooth and then a ski weekend getaway came about. After doing some research I decided to forego one of my short runs and get a long run in the night before we left. It worked well, but I knew I was going to not be running for three days straight. Where the plan went bad was me getting sick on the last day of the trip and not running for for and addition 4 days. An entire week off. My saving grace was that the following week was vacation week so I just took out one short run and did my long run on a Monday. Now I am pretty much back on track and I have a half marathon scheduled for the last Sunday of vacation.

So, the new dilemma, I am at the end of week 9 in my training which calls for 16 miles and I am running a half marathon. I guess I need to run an extra 3 miles. The "experts" are divided and say a hard 13.1 could substitute for a long run even if it is not the same distance. I ended up deciding to run 13.1 and then double back and get my wife which in theory should add a couple miles. It worked out perfectly. I finished the race, got my medal and ran back a little over a mile to get my wife and ran her in. So, I would say I ended up running a little over 15 miles. I momentarily contemplated running one more mile, but decided that since week 10 called for another 16 mile run that I could hold off until then. To the race, it was awesome!! The other three half marathons I have done I finished every single one of them and felt like absolute crap! I felt amazing at the end of this one and realistically I felt like I could have run all day. I actually had to keep holding myself back.

My confidence is building, mostly because for the past 4 weeks I have run 12, 14, 15 and 16 miles. This past week my friend Glenn drove me up to the Boston Marathon course so that we could get some training on the actual course. It was very helpful, it is a hilly course so it was nice to be able to practice it. I will say this, the hills in my training runs are harder than Boston so I am absolutely pumped that I added hilly running into my regular running schedule. Having said that, I did not run the legendary Heartbreak Hill so maybe I will change my mind after that. I forgot to take some ibuprofen or naproxen ahead of time for my knees, but with the exception of that minor joint discomfort the run felt great and I was able to pick it up for the last couple of miles.

Fueling - I never fueled before when I ran half marathons, but I know that there is no realistic way to make through a full marathon without adding some fuel. I was a bit hesitant to try the Gu stuff, I thought I may puke so I tried the jelly beans during my 14 mile run in week 8. I started chewing them around mile 7 and it took me a full mile to down like 6 of them. It sucked. I did stash a Gatorade and water at the end of my driveway which was mile 7 so I quickly downed the Gatorade and washed it down with water before picking it up again and doing the final 7 miles. During the half marathon I did two Gu's right before water stations and it worked out well. I have heard horror stories of certain things not agreeing with peoples stomachs, but after three weeks of fueling during the long runs I have not had any problems. I have decided that on long runs I am going to fuel every 4 miles and this is what I did this past weekend on the Boston Marathon course and it worked well.

Pain- During the training I did for my half marathons I made the fatal error of buying the wrong shoes. I decided that since I am going to run these races I should get the best running shoes. STUPID!! I bought sneakers that did not have any motion control and within two weeks I was having knee problems.

So far the only significant pain that I have been having is in the top of my left foot after long runs. The weird thing about it is that it only hurts when I wake up in the morning and has never hurt when I run. My knees hurt during my actual run, but it is a dull discomfort and I can usually avoid it by having Advil or Aleve before I do my long run. As I said earlier, I forgot it on my long run yesterday and the discomfort was a little more than normal, but I was still able to run through it.