A 62 year old's journey to qualify for the Boston Marathon
Nice, mild early morning for a run. Temperature around 41 and no wind. Didn’t feel too bad at all after a week of pretty much no running. Everything feels OK — time to change that a bit.
Today’s run was a 4.22 mile mostly flat route. Pace was 9:47. Weight was 146.0.
Back to it. I figured that it would be a tired run today and I was correct. Not a big deal. It was nice to get out mid-day in the mild air (51 degrees) and bright sunshine.
The plan is to just keep it going. Push higher and harder. Next marathon is the Chevron Houston Marathon in January, so no point in taking a break.
Today’s run was a 5.1 mile hills route. Pace was 9:22. Weight was 146.8.
Race day. What a crowd. The wait line for packet pick-up on Saturday was (apparently) well over an hour. We got there early.
The race start line was not obvious at all and was quite a walk from the Pentagon Metro stop. Also, I didn’t realize that the 50K starts about 50 minutes earlier than the marathon. Lesson learned: dig into schedules and start details more. I made it (had to run a bit) to the start just as the starting gun went off!
The first 9.5 miles weren’t too crowded, since it was only the 50K runners. That totally changed when we came back to the bridge where we merged into the marathon mob. Wow! People everywhere. Screaming people on the sides of the course everywhere. Forget trying to keep to a constant pace and maybe ramping it up a bit. The water stops were crazy and got worse as we got further into the race. Whatever. I was primarily focused on keeping it going, managing the energy level, and dodging people.
I was considering ditching the CamelBak and depending on water stops. So glad I didn’t. It was mild and cloudy for most of the race, but at about mile 20 (for me) the Sun starting popping out. It then turned warm and humid. Lots of walkers for the last 6 miles or so. I timed my hydration schedule perfectly — drained the CamelBak at mile 27 or 28.
Today’s run was the Marine Corps Marathon’s 50K ultra. Pace was a slpw 11:12. No walking, though.