One Month to Go!

I can't believe that we have only one month until the marathon!  Another hard week to go, and then I begin to taper.  This has been an unbelievable journey, and I am so glad that so many of you have been following it and experiencing it with me.  All of my hard work will culminate in one day, but the real experience is in the journey.  Thank you all for making it possible.

Question of the Week: Has running taken over your life?

In a word: YES!  Am I sorry?  NO!  I have always been a very goal oriented person, so I am not surprised at the amount of effort that I am putting in, but I am surprised at the amount of time that I have found to do my workouts.  Before I started training for the marathon, I would have never anticipated that I could find 2-4 hours a day to train, never mind have the amount of energy needed to train for that length of time.  But little by little, my workouts have become longer and longer and more intense, and the crazy part is that I LOOK FORWARD TO THEM!!  I usually plow through the rest of my day, excited for when I can throw on my running shoes and get in a good sweat.

Running the Boston Marathon was at the top of my bucket list, and I planned to make it "one and done," but now I'm already planning for my next marathon.  Will it be the Sugarloaf Marathon in May, or the Maine Marathon in September?  I already put my name in the lottery for the New York Marathon in November.  Will I be able to run next year's Boston Marathon as a qualified runner?  I guess we'll have to wait and see....

In this blog post, I'm going to cover a plethora of topics - there is just so much going on this close to the race!  First I would like to start with a little Boston Marathon History.


The History of Women in the Boston Marathon:

This will be the 116th Boston Marathon, and during those 116 years, there were many memorable moments.  Whenever reading about or hearing about these historical highlights, I had never really thought about the fact that none of them included women.

Katherine Switzer - 1968 Boston Marathon

In 1966, Roberta Gibb was the first women to run the Boston Marathon.  She hid in the bushes at the start, and ran it as a bandit, completing the race in 3:21:40.

The first woman to register for the race was Katherine Switzer, in 1968.  She registered as the ambiguous "K. Switzer."  It was not until half way through the race that an official saw her and attempted to take her number, but she was protected by her boyfriend who ran at her side, as well as other runners on the course.  She officially finished the race in 4:20:00.  Even after all of the controversy, women still were not officially allowed to enter the Boston Marathon until 1972.

Katherine Switzer went on to run 35 marathons, winning the 1974 New York Marathon, placing 2nd at the 1975 Boston Marathon, and inspiring women everywhere to run. (To learn more, click HERE.)

Joan Benoit - 1984 Olympic Marathon

So even though this is the 116th running of the Boston Marathon, it is only the 40th year women have been allowed to enter.  In addition, women were not allowed to run the marathon in the Olympics until 1984, just 28 years ago, (the winner was former Boston Marathon winner and Maine resident Joan Benoit)!  Up until that point, women were thought of as too fragile to run such a distance, and if attempted, then the would get big legs and grow mustaches!

As a child of the 80's, (I was born 1/28/1980,) I am thankful that I was raised in an environment in which I was blissfully unaware of these gender stereotypes.  I played on co-ed soccer and basketball teams, and often ran with the boys at track practice.  I opted not to apply to any all-female colleges after one school boasted that the best thing about their school was that I would not have to compete with boys (I heard it both from students AND admissions personnel!)  I did not realize to what extent gender stereotypes were alive and well in this country.  In recognition of the risk these women took to change the perception of women in sports, I would like to dedicate this blog post to the pioneers who made this experience possible for me.  Thank you Roberta Gibb, Katherine Switzer, and Joan Benoit.  Without you, I would not be running the Boston Marathon for Dana-Farber this year.


Fundraising Update:

T-Shirts:

All T-shirt orders are in!  We had a total of 66 t-shirts ordered, and are waiting for our total costs to see how much will be donated to Dana-Farber!  I was hoping for possibly 40 shirts, and we shattered that goal.  Also, I would like to extend a big thank you to the number of people who donated more money than the $15 per shirt!  Your donations helped us to reach a new goal:)  Here is a list of the people who will be honored both on the t-shirts, as well as on the back of my race-day singlet:

General Fundraising:

With all of your support, we are just shy of $6000 raised to support cancer care and research, and that is BEFORE we add the money from the t-shirt fundraiser!  Dana-Farber has set a team goal of $8000 per person.  Originally I thought that this goal was completely out of reach, but now I am setting it as a target.  Thank you for supporting my run for cancer  care and research.  With your support, we are making a difference.

Training:

This week was an odd week for training.  I started the week with a 5.2 mile recovery run on Sunday, and a 6 mile progressive run on the Newton hills on Monday.  Those combined with daylight savings left me a little weary on Tuesday, so I was thankful that our track workout was cancelled.  I took the day as a rest day, hoping to be re-energized for the rest of the week.  

I did get my track workout in on Wednesday at the NEW Newton North track.  It does look just like the picture, except the old NNHS in the background has been since knocked down, and there are gorgeous playing fields in its place.

As nice as the track was, I'm SO glad that I don't normally have to run them by myself!  The workout called for 20 x 400 at 5k pace, with 200 recovery between each (400 after #5, 10, 15, 20,) starting with one mile warm-up, and ending with a half mile cool down.  So 10 miles of track work total...alone.  My pace was to keep each 400 under 1:50 (so each 200 under 55.)  Here are my splits:

The first half was tough, but once I passed #11, I seemed to function on auto-pilot.  I was just glad to get it over with!

On Wednesday, to give my legs a rest from the hills, I decided to hit the treadmill.  I started my 8 miles at   8 minute pace, but soon decided to make it a progressive run.  Once I reached half-way, I realized how close I was to finishing in under and hour, and made that my new goal.  I was able to finish in 59:16, averaging a 7:23 mile.  Even though my legs were really tired the next day, it made me VERY hopeful that my pace would be impressive in the NB halfie.

New Bedford 1/2 Marathon:

Out of all of my training races this season, the NB 1/2 marathon has me the most nervous.  This was my 3rd time completing the course, and both of the previous times I ran it, I set my 1/2 marathon PRs (2004 and 2010).  It is also a race where I see a lot of friends and supporters from my childhood.  I wanted to run the best time I could run, but I was nervous that I would go out too fast and kill my chances.

Well, as I feared, I ended up going out too fast.  I missed the first mile marker, so when I finished mile #2, I realized that I was almost a full minute ahead of pace, and about to take on the biggest hill of the race!  From that point on, I vowed to listen to my body and run my own race.  I pushed up the hill and although the rest of the race was probably more painful than it should have been, I maintained my pace even pushing through the final hill in mile 13!  I still managed to finish in 1:45:04 - averaging 8:01 per mile.  I killed my previous NB best of 2:02, and half marathon PR of 1:52:42.  I also place 69th in my division, out of 409 (women between 30 and 40 years old!)  Top 16%:)

It was wonderful to catch up with family and friends.  My Uncle Kinder and Aunt Karen were also running, so I was able to talk with them both before and after the race.  My friends Kate and Ellie also ran, so I was able to talk with both of them after the race.  This race always feels like a homecoming, with familiar faces all along the sidelines, and old friends scattered along the course.  It was great to see everyone, and I can't wait for next year:)