One Week

It is less than one week until I run the Boston Marathon! Training has been good for the most part, and other than a couple minor nagging aches and pains I should arrive at the starting line in good health and ready to race. It won't be my first time to the Boston Marathon starting line, but last time I was there it was without much fanfare, and a 5k seemed like a long race.

Jeff, Cary, and I at the Boston Marathon Starting Line - Aug 1999

Based on how my training has been going I'm hoping to run somewhere around 2:45:00. Beyond that I have no idea what to expect. This will be my first majors marathon, and far larger than any race I have done before. The amount of hype, security, excitement, and history surrounding this race, it's large and relatively elite field, and the travel and logistics details certainly have me feeling a bit nervous about it, but I'm fairly good at keeping my nerves in check and not getting too stressed before races.

If anyone wants to follow along they can get txt or email alerts by signing up for the ATT Athlete Alert. I am bib number 359 and I'll be starting in coral 1 at 10:00 Eastern time.

Easing Off

Last week was supposed to be my final big mileage week before beginning to taper, but the week got busy and I only ended up with around 60 miles. Oh well, I got a few good training weeks in anyway and I got in my hard goal workouts for the week, so I'm feeling more and more ready. Now I just have to keep myself from trying to do too much as my legs finally recover from the last few hard weeks and hopefully start to feel springy leading up to race day.

I've done my last few hard workouts with Jeff, and seem to have found that extra gear that has been missing most of the spring. My tempo work had been pretty consistently around 5:50/mi pace or a bit slower. Having someone else there to run with my paces dropped down to 5:40 or a bit below and have just felt smooth. Still not quite down to the paces I was hitting before Grandma's last year, but I'm pretty excited to have my running shape come around and I'm getting more and more excited about racing in a couple weeks. Jeff is getting much faster for sure, and now can easily keep me in sight during the tempo segments. He will be one to watch out for at Grandma's this year!

Since my streak of not taking pictures for the blog is still continuing I'll keep this post short since it will be visually uninteresting. I haven't been home much in the last couple weeks between some babysitting for the neighbors, several trips up to the cities to run with Jeff or hang out with a friend, the end of the year Vakava party, and even a fun movie night thrown in there.

A Bit Crusty

Winter's brief reunion tour appears to be at an end and the dumping of snow Northfield got is quickly fading. Before it left I did manage to get in one fun morning of crust skiing however. Friday a couple of co-workers and I headed out to the Northfield golf club to try out the snow. The crust was plenty firm, but the fresh snow and lack of sun made the surface so abrasive it would drag our skis to a stop whenever we tried to skate off. I switched to the Skintec's I was still demoing, and they performed quite well, getting decent glide, bomber kick, and only occasionally feeling draggy. We had to pick our route carefully, because all the cart paths were already down to pavement, but it was a gorgeous morning to be out, and it was great fun to get one more day on the skis.

Skintec skis, the correct choice for lazy people in any conditions

Other than those last couple skiing days it has been mostly all running. The only miles my bike has so far this year are commuting miles. I have made it through almost all of the toughest workouts of this abbreviated marathon cycle, and paces have been quite consistent. Tempo pace has been slower this spring than it was before Grandmas, but my heart rate has also been lower, and I've been doing most of the workouts alone, so my fitness may not be what it was last summer, but it isn't far behind.

The only passport I'll need for this vacation

I'm getting more and more excited for Boston as I keep getting emails and actual mail with race information and updates. I am bib #359 and based on last years results I probably won't be beating my bib number. So my goal is to beat the guys time who had my bib last year. He finished in 2:45, so considering my current fitness that is a tough but achievable goal. Motivation is still a bit of a struggle right now, but workouts are going well, so that is encouraging. At this point I am more nervous about the traveling than I am about the racing.

I do have one quandary though, which I will pose to all you blog readers. The souvenir that all runners must get when doing Boston is a jacket. The jacket this year however is not appealing to me at all, and if there is one thing I really don't need in my closet it's another running/skiing jacket. So if there is anyone reading with some fashion sense, or an opinion on Boston jackets, hop in the comments and let me know what you think.

Should I get a weird purple jacket?

or maybe some snazzy running tights?