Mile to Go Before I Sleep*

In between my first post and today, my training focused on the Run to Remember half marathon which was yesterday. I'll get to the race below, but first up just some background.

A few things to know about me is that I ran high school track (and cross country because our coach made us. I was a hurdler so sprinter by nature and pretty much hated distance and was not good at it because I didn't like to try or the discomfort with the longer runs. I think my PR then was like 29:50 for a 5K. In college I played ultimate frisbee and so, again, focused on sprinted and skills. To this day, I love ultimate and often wished I had my a stronger go at playing on the top teams, but I made great friends and teams so no real regrets. I started to run much after a stressful college break-up and needing to release pent up emotions. Between my frisbee focus, I did race some 5Ks and four half marathons. In August 2012, I tore my left ACL and after a very difficult summer and surgery, began running again in the spring of 2013 and played frisbee again in the winter of 2014. I kept running, eventually getting a job at a running store (now part time as I'm back in my professional field) and found playing frisbee competitively was difficult for various reasons. In July of 2015 I tore my right ACL (WTF, seriously, I know). After my second surgery and hitting my mid-30s it began apparently I should hang up the cleats, but maybe still play on sand so I have pretty much done that.

Being competitive, I decided to make new goals such as PR in a half marathon (best time was 1:51:20), then run a half in 1:45:59, get a 5K under 22 minutes, run a marathon and qualify for Boston. And so that is where I find myself today. Side note: maybe I'll go back to cleated frisbee but if I tear something again I will probably never forgive myself.

As mentioned above the Run to Remember was yesterday. In 2008 this was my first half marathon and it's a great course through Boston. Yesterday was nice weather, a bit warm around mile 9 as the sun came out but nothing that took away from the pace. I managed to run a 1:49:53 which is a PR! I believe I can do better and I have to eventually try to push the pace being aware that I run a risk of really having a crash. Or maybe not. What this race shows me is that I can focus on goals and will need to also improve a lot over the next few months if I want to BQ.

About three-four weeks prior to R2R I did start to bring in speed work outs to my running, including tempo runs and one 400 repeat. It made me feel like my old self during track and frisbee workouts so there is a part of me that looks forward to the marathon speed work outs. I also tried to focus on arm and ab workouts which, although basic, I believe do help. I plan to increase my stretching focus which I desperately need to do. All in all, what I've come to realize is that I will need to focus and prioritize my running, other work outs, food and sleep to do this. I have a month of prep before I start to follow a schedule. I hope by then I'll have made some adjustments so that the changes don't seem so startling or difficult.

Regardless, everyone has heard it: nothing worse having comes easy (kudos to Theodore Roosevelt I believe).

*Original quote, I know.

Stop...Wait a Minute*

I have made many attempts at blogging over the years. I always wanted to have something to say that I wanted to write and that, I'd hope, others would want to read. The thing is there are a lot of blogs out there about a lot of things and I've never had a niche that I've committed to and never began a business that needed the exposure. But still I've always wanted to find something out there to take the time to keep a diary of for myself and others.

And so, with attempt number who-knows-what, I'm once again taking a step into the world of blogging with a focus on...

QUALIFYING FOR THE BOSTON MARATHON

I know this is not a new idea and, although I haven't yet, I bet I could google that term and find many blogs documenting the exact same topic. But I've decided to say that's okay. This blog isn't going to be unique. It isn't going to be my job where I try to recruit people over to my side of Boston training. It simply is going to be about my journey towards this goal. Hopefully over the months I'll get some folks who are interested, but maybe not. Ideally, at the end of it all, I will get a good enough time for the blog to be happy memory.

So, here's the first entry and just the basic of information to start:

My husband and I have signed up for the Baystate Marathon October 22nd. My BQ time is 3:40 and, with the way things go with Boston these days, I'm aiming to run at least an 8:20 pace (3:38:30). Baystate will be my first marathon, although I've run five half marathons with a sixth coming up Memorial weekend. Official training will start in July but in the meantime I'll warm up with the blog and trying to get things in order to achieve this goal.

*Thank you, Bruno Mars, for the help today on an 11 mile run.