Going the distance

Before I started training for Boston, the idea of running over 13 miles seemed daunting and something that my body may just not be able to do. I always felt that the challenge of a half marathon was enough and up until a few weeks ago, I have never ran more than 13.1 miles. On February 19th, I ran the 'Half at the Hamptons' in Hampton, New Hampshire. It was a weird feeling going into this race because usually I have spent weeks training for the ultimate goal of finishing the half, knowing that after the race is time for my body to rest and recoup and long runs were no longer part of my weekly routine. Not this time. This half marathon was merely a training run and I treated it that way. I paced myself the entire race, and even though it was one of the slower ones I have ran, I felt really good at the end of it, which gave me the confidence going into next week's 15-miler. 

In the past few weeks, my runs have been testing me. I ran 15-miles on a Saturday in February when we had sustained winds of 35-45 mph and gusts of wind up to 60mph. Awesome.... When I came home, our patio furniture was turned upside down on our deck, and I was just happy that wasn't me in the middle of the road somewhere in Cohasset or Hingham. The next week I ran 17-miles at night, which I will never do again. I have never ran at night before and didn't really take into consideration that I wouldn't be able to see the sidewalk in front of me, even on well-lit main roads. I did wear lots of reflective gear so at least cars could see me! To say that run was interesting is an understatement. The following week was a step back week, running 13 miles. Well these 13 miles came the morning after Pat's K9 fundraiser. I wore a dress and stood in 4inch heels for 7 hours... so the next morning my feet were killing me. I also didn't properly hydrate or sleep well, but I got through the 13 miles and vowed to limit my high heel use until after April 16th. Sigh.

Today I made my way back into Wellesley for a group run with Dana-Farber. I really love these runs and wish I could have made more during training, but they are just really far away. We ran 18 miles along the marathon route and it was amazing how many runners were out today along the route! It was such an awesome feeling running with people who are all working towards the same goal as you. I got about 3 high-fives from random runners running in the opposite direction, saw kids sitting in their yards yelling "good job" and heard endless encouragement from my teammates and volunteers along the run. Today was also the day where I really started testing my food/water/gatorade/gu intake to see how I felt. I have heard a million times to never try anything new on race day, so I am using the training runs to test different things out so I know exactly what works for me the day of the race. I felt really good at the end of today's run and I am now looking ahead to next week's final long run... 20 miles from Boston College with the team! 

29 days until marathon monday :)

Happy running!

Heather