RACE DAY!
First of all, I am happy to report that I have finally qualified for the Boston Marathon. Boston 2011, here I come!!!
I hadn't been feeling well all week, as a sore throat and cold settled in on Monday afternoon. It was one thing that hadn't even crossed my mind all throughout training, and to be hit on my final taper week, totally threw me. In hindsight, it was forced relaxation.
The plan was to aim for a negative split, and goal time was 3:38. My qualifying time was 3:45:59, so I wanted to ensure that I had enough cushion so I wouldn't be stressing. Birch Bay marathon is a small race (like usually less than 75 participants), that is located on the Birch Bay peninsula, with gorgeous views throughout. It starts at the state park, then does two 10 mile loops before returning back to the state park. The course offers a cross between sea-level running, to a 275' elevation climb (2x) and rolling downward hills. I knew that I would lose time on the big hill, but thought there would be enough downhill to make up lost time.
I found a negative split paceband called Katy Fit Negative Split Marathon paceband, which is actually an excel spreadsheet. Plug in your timegoal, how many minute neg split, and it calculates everything for you- totally recommend it! With this, my plan was to start out very slow- 8:54 for the first mile, and then miles 2-10 were 8:24/mile, 11-16 were 8:18, and then miles 17-26 targeted 8:12. The paces were achieveable, and often I had to pull back a bit, so that I didn't give up too much, too soon. I found it a bit challenging on the 17-26, as the first 4 miles I kept going faster, and then the last 3 miles I had to really push to keep it up.
Nutrition wise, I felt totally dialled in (and that would be for once!). Breakfast consisted of oatmeal with brown sugar, coffee and a banana. Took 2 tums, 1 advil and drank about 500ml of water. Every 10 minutes, I took about 3 sips of Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem, and every 40 minutes I took a Carb Boom gel. Normally, my stomach starts acting up around 18 miles, but it was totally great throughout. I did take 2 more advil around 20 miles, and that helped alleviate the hip pain that was kicking in.
The final 3 miles were really tough, as I was trying to deal with an elevated heart rate of 160. I was borderline on having an asthma attack, so I was trying to relax and get the heart rate down. I did get a stitch in my ride side around 21 miles, that persisted until the end of the race.
I was thrilled to see the final result, and just so happy to finally achieve this goal. It really showed that all the effort and miles I have done, have paid off. Now, I have to start researching when registration opens and our trip for 2011. I was very grateful for Greg keeping me on track during the course, and friends cheering me on.
Boston..... here I come! :-) | 
