Sunday, May 1, 2011

Mission Accomplished


Well, sorta. Up until this year, the Boston Marathon would consider you a qualifier if you met the time standard, plus a 59-second ‘gift.’ Basically, if you needed to finish in 3 hours, 40 minutes to qualify, you could still get in if you ran a 3:40:59. Well, they recently changed the standards and got rid of the 59-second window. I’m giving myself the 59-seconds and I’m still counting this race as goal-achieved. I ran a 1:30:50 in this year’s Mountain Goat, which is still 9 minutes better than I did last time. I didn’t get the medal promised to finishers coming in under 90, but that just gives me something to reach for next year.


Part of the problem (and the fun) was getting totally swept up in the excitement of the day. Hearing the talk about the lead pack, who was going out how fast and who was looking strong really got me looking forward to this morning. It almost made me want to watch instead of run, but well, I had signed up so I was in. Not to mention my new sneakers :) It was so great to be out on the course seeing both runners and spectators from boot camp and our running group. Great job Mom, Tracey, Melissa, Julie, Scott, Kevin, Colleen, Natalia, Holly and all the runners from our Thursday night group. I loved seeing Lisa, Karen, Nancy, Mrs. Cawley, Julie, Marilyn (who got some great pics!) and my dad cheering as I ran by or at the finish. I was so out of it I think I would have wandered off into Syracuse if Julie hadn’t gotten my attention at the end (thanks!). Even better was wandering around in a post race stupor, seeing friends, people from work and of course my family. It’s fun to be part of such a great community of runners. Major thanks to a teacher from FM (who I never had) for slowing down to share some humor and helped me keep going a little longer than I otherwise would have. 




















I’m trying to tell myself that I should be happy with the results. But I’m struggling with them a little. I made some pretty rookie mistakes since despite the issues I have with my shins/back and the constant cough I’ve been dealing with this week, I let myself get caught up in the excitement of the day. And it had been building since Thursday when I left our tempo workout feeling so strong. I guess I had that pace in my head. Unfortunately it wasn’t one I could keep up for 10 miles. But enough of the shoulda, coulda, woulda. I can’t change it, so I might as well be happy with it. 

Not to mention my feet looked like this before I started: 


But seeing as I haven’t been able to get off the couch all day, I guess I left it all out there. Better to be spent too early than to have too much left over? I guess it’s like Kevin says before each of our workouts. There are three possible outcomes. You’ll go out too hard and have to slow down, you’ll go out too slow and be able to speed up or you’ll get both halves about even. I went out too slow at the half marathon, too fast today, so maybe I’ll get the next one just right? I’m looking forward to the race season, but I don’t want to over do it.

2 comments:

  1. If that was the before picture I'm afraid to ask what they look like now! how on earth did you run like that?

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  2. They didn't really look so different after. I guess my sneakers didn't really rub against them luckily :)

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