In which some stuff happened, and I'm a terrible marathon trainer

Stuff that's happened:
-I have done 2 20+ mile runs...and then basically just decided that long runs were for the birds, and haven't done one since. I am hoping to get a 22 in at some point this week. Did I mention my marathon is in 2 weeks? Yeah. That's happening...I guess. I've never been so apathetic about a race before in my life. I think this might go along over all with my sudden realization that running, as it turns out, is something I do for FUN, and I'm not going to be thrown off of a cliff if I don't run that well. This attitude has not been particularly beneficial for my training, but then again, neither has the hot/humid weather, the fact that I'm dancing as well as running, or the fact that my plantar fasciitis has been acting up.

-I have, however, done quite a few days of 10-12 miles, some with speedwork thrown in the middle for good measure, and I also went on a 17 day streak with no rest days. So there's that. I've been going to GBTC with remarkable consistency, even though we've been trekking out to a park to do XC work, which I basically hate. Clearly I am not the joyous XC runner that I was in college. I just don't like running on sand/gravel, OK??

-Some races happened!
Yankee Homecoming 10M -
The 10 miler was on a random Tuesday night, and also happened to be my first race at the distance. It did NOT go well...and by that I mean I ran a slower pace than my marathon PR. Woof. I hadn't been feeling well all day, and looking back I wouldn't be surprised if I was running with a low grade fever, because I can't remember my face/head ever feeling SO. HOT. in a race. Granted, it was relatively warm/humid out, but I just felt like I was burning up. Definitely just one of those days where everything feels bad from the start. I actually considered taking the 5K cutoff at mile 2.5...of course, I didn't, and so I just struggled on through the rest of the race.

I decided to wear sunglasses for this race, but I quickly realized that they were making my face feel even hotter than it already was. Here I am attempting to throw them at my sister, then realizing I was on the opposite side in the road. Approximately mile 3, and already hating life. 

To add insult to injury, I ended up spending the entire race about 100m behind my friend Joy...who had RUN A MARATHON 4 DAYS BEFORE. Ouch. Aside from just feeling like crap, I think the race itself was great, and definitely one I would do again. The crowd support was incredible - it's one of those delightful New England races where this race is a HUGE deal for the city and everyone comes out to support. The course, while hilly, was quite nice, with parts being run by the ocean, through the cute downtown area, and a nice long downhill through a state park.

Thank goodness it's about to be over. 

One good thing did come out of this, which was that as a team, we got 2nd, winning some money for our club! Hooray. Not that I was much of a contributor to that, but whatever, sometimes the important thing is just showing up!

I am literally soaking wet in this picture. Also I should probably get a GBTC sports bra. 

4 x 1600m Relay, aka will run for beer

This was the most low key, ridiculous thing I've ever done and it was awesome. We basically showed up, ran the relay, and then went off to drink. I think there was a total of one other women's team (although we DID set the meet record, so that's something). I actually pleasantly surprised myself by running a 6:13, which really didn't feel all that hard - I mean, it's hard running a hard mile, but I wouldn't say I was really killing myself racing it, which makes me think I maybe am in better shape than I realized. 

Our reward for our team victory was a case of beer. So basically, this was the best use of my time on a random Thursday night EVER. 10/10 would run again (although something tells me that now that the secret's out that you get beer if you win, there might be more competition next year!)

I'm also running a 6K XC race this weekend....so that should be entertaining. Also, and perhaps most importantly, I GOT A JOB. So now I have to be a normal person and fit my training in around working 9-5. Might be an adjustment from my current lifestyle of being able to run literally whenever I want...but also will hopefully snap me out of some of my laziness that comes with just being able to run whenever I want. It's going to be an exciting fall!

Summer is the worst.

Oh, look, it's my post of the month! Let's see, what's happened since I last checked in...

-Marathon training is a thing that's actually happening, shockingly. I have pretty much done all of my runs dutifully but without any actual desire to do them, and I think if it weren't for my friends dragging me along there's no way I would be remotely prepared for this marathon. The fact that it's been alternating between 90+ degrees, sunny, and 60% humidity and 80+ degrees, cloudy, and 90% humidity for the last 3 weeks really hasn't added any motivation to the pile. I hate summer running even when it's a relatively nice summer, and I really don't remember ever experiencing a summer that was this consistently awful. A look at the weather during my long runs thus far:

This may or may not have happened during one of my long runs. This was also my first experience running with a backpack, because I was going to trivia afterwards and figured I shouldn't completely drench everyone with my sweat. I am legitimately IN LOVE with this backpack, PS.

• 6/9/13 - 14 miles, 85 and sunny
• 6/16/13 - 12 miles (aborted 15), actually I don't think the weather was that bad, but I was hungover, so there were issues.
• 6/24/13 - 16.4 miles, holy shit, it was 85 and humid at 8 am when I left, and climbed to 95 by the time I finished the run. Ran a route with no shade like a complete moron. Carried water, so at least didn't die.
• 7/1/13 - 18.6 miles, 80 and 90% humidity
• 7/6/13 - 13.1 miles (aborted 16), 90 and sunny and humid on a route with no water = no.
• Which brings us to yesterday, when I experienced probably the worst long run of my life in again, 90% humidity and temps in the 80s. I don't know if it was because now I'm used to drinking like 60 oz of water while on the run or what, but I didn't do that yesterday and I legitimately wondered if I was going to pass out. Joy and I dragged each other along through the last 10 miles. I guess the upside to all of this is that I somehow actually HAVE been doing long runs very consistently despite some truly awful weather, so maybe I will make it through this marathon after all. 18.5 miles somehow achieved. Next weekend is 20 which I am not looking forward to at all. 

In other news, I came out of holiday-racing hibernation to do a 4th of July 5K, and it was pretty much the worst race I've ever run. Not to sound like a broken record, but...it was 85, blazing sun, and 80% humidity. And my body really isn't very good at getting rid of heat. Also, the course started with a 3/4 mile long uphill, and there was not a lick of shade. There were men in front of me walking during the 3rd mile. And so I ran a 22:39 5K...which hilariously was good for 24th overall and 2nd overall woman (which got me the most hilarious announcements ever as I ran down the stretch...here comes the second place woman, she knows she has it, she's just kicking it down the final stretch..I laughed). I got a ridiculous plaque, which I will never be able to live down. Why is it that the times when I actually run a good race in the 5K never seem to overlap with the times that I win things? Because running is dumb, that's why. And that's about all I've got for the moment. 

Did not die. Great success.

A tale of 3 5K's

So while I was in DC I did 3 5Ks...not because I was training to race or was/am in any sort of racing shape (because trust me, I was/am not...though as for the "not training for anything" bit, stay tuned) but mainly for entertainment and to attempt to get SOME sort of reasonably hard running in from time to time. Here are some mini race reports for those 5Ks, since none of them were really spectacular enough to warrant their own post.

Crystal City 5K #2, aka, "whee, a 5K! Racing is fun! Oh wait, no, no it isn't fun at all."
I signed up for this race at like 11 am the day of - sometimes, its hard to break the seal of not racing. Basically the stimulus for this race was the fact that it was in Virginia, and so I could check that state off my 50 states list. Got there far too early, hung out for a bit, and then went to warm up by doing laps around a hotel...very exciting stuff. I really didn't have a good idea of where to line myself up. First, I found myself surrounded by women carrying cell phones and wearing capris (on a 70+, humid evening). Hmm, OK, move up a few rows? I then found my path blocked by 3 middle school boys and a woman with a stroller. OK then, try again. I finally wedged myself into a spot about 6 rows back and waited for the race to start.

I was very impressed with how a race could contain almost 2000 people and still somehow feel "low key". That being said, when 2000 people come barreling around 2 very tight turns at the start of a 5K, shit kind of gets real. And so I got caught up in the crowd and took it out HARD. It's been so long since I raced a 5K, that I was really only getting signals of "hm, this seems fast, but generally OK? I guess?" so I had no clue how fast I was running. And then I came through the mile, saw my 6:18 split, and was just like, well, oops. I guess that's the kind of day this is going to be. About 3 minutes later I began crashing and burning in a big way, and by the 2 mile mark (7:14, by the way. Yeeeeeah.) I was basically on the verge of seeing my life flash before my eyes. I was hot and miserable. Another lovely 7:14 that felt like about a 10:00 brought me in at 21:40. I was 16th woman overall which was extremely confusing, since at a race this big in Boston that time would probably put me in the 40s.  But whatever - I felt accomplished for attempting to race. And then I got my ID denied at Noodles & Co, and went home to my aunt being super proud of me for "just finishing". Non runners are entertaining.

A selfie to demonstrate my feelings about this 5K. They were not very good feelings. Also notice how my face is the same color as the cherry blossoms behind me...LOL. 

Crystal City 5K #4, aka, "maybe racing CAN be fun...if you're not an idiot."
After the atrocious pacing of the race before, my main goal was to run like a non-idiot and finish in a faster time as a result. I had also happened to have drinks with a friend from WTC who now lives in DC the night before, and as it turned out he was running the race as well..so at least I knew ONE person in the crowd. I decided to warm up in the other direction, since running circles around a hotel sounded unappealing. Turns out, there was a lovely rail trail (reminded me a bit of the High Line, only wider) in the other direction...perfect for a nice, relaxed warmup.

The race started late, and the timing on it was a little unclear, so I ended up doing strides (another sign I was actually attempting to race this one for real) like 3 times before we actually got started. As we got underway I had my familiar mantra in my head: DON'T BE AN IDIOT. The weather was a little nicer this time around, and I really had to tell myself to keep reining it in. As we came down the back stretch "Don't Stop Believin'" was playing and ah, I had to grin. This was clearly going to be a better race. Came through the first mile in 6:35 so apparently I succeeded in the not being an idiot plan. As a result, I felt MUCH better during the second mile, and was actually able to pass a few people. I definitely slowed down - 6:54 for mile 2 - but overall I maintained quite a bit better. Mile 3 was, as usual, pretty painful, but mentally I made myself keep pushing and actually held on for a 6:55, so really no slowdown at all from mile 2-3, which is pretty impressive for me! Final time was 21:05, which is actually my 3rd best road 5K ever, so given the fact that I had done NO speedwork whatsoever in over a month, it was a good performance. I also later found out that I was 8th out of over 1000 women, which is kind of absurd - there's no way that time would even crack the top 50 at a race of this size in Boston, but there it was. And then I immediately threw jeans on over my shorts, got on the Metro, and went to the Nats game...runner problems.

Head tilt of death coming towards the finish...pretty typical. I also need to note that I'm really obsessed with my racing outfit right now, since the shorts/singlet combo also match the shoes. I need to find a pair of those brooks shorts in black too!

MBT 5K, aka, "running a shit race, and winning money for only the second time in your life. Because running is dumb."
This race I literally decided to do like, the Thursday before, even though I was really sore from dance, for pretty much one reason: cute t-shirts. It's been far too long since I received a new race shirt and the design of these bad boys was too nice to resist. So...I signed up. The day of the race was so very, very humid. Like in the 90s as far as percentage, the type of humidity where you feel like you are in a rainforest or a sauna every time you go outside. Between that and the fact that my legs were STILL sore from my epic return to dance class on Wednesday, I did not think things were going to go very well. The race was considerably more low key than Crystal City, but still very well run. We got packets with a drawstring bag and GENDER SPECIFIC TECH SHIRTS. Read that sentence again. For a $25 5K, that's pretty much unheard of these days, so I was very impressed. Me being me, I was kind of scoping out the competition and only saw a couple of girls who looked fast, so I began entertaining thoughts of actually going for an award. On my warmup, however, I pretty much immediately felt like I was going to die in the humidity, so I kind of put that thought to the back of my head and figured, meh, worst case scenario, you do it as a tempo.

Heading off the line at MBT 5K. I cannot BELIEVE how muscly my leg looks! (Photo by Gregg Adams)

We got off the line and there were immediately a couple of women out HARD ahead of me. Like the smart racer that I am trying to be, I let them go, knowing that trying to go out in 6:00 pace in this weather would be suicidal. I focused on just relaxing and trying to find a groove. The race was a double out & back on a basically flat bike path, so not the most exciting in terms of scenery but good for zoning out. After awhile, I noticed that we had passed the mile mark (going the other way) quite awhile back, and was starting to wonder when the turnaround would be. We came up under a bridge, and all of a sudden there was just a clusterfuck of the leaders trying to come back in the other direction, yelling "turn around, turn around, you missed the turnaround!" at us. So I basically just did a 180 and went back the other direction. Apparently the leaders ran ~400 extra, and my pack probably added on 100-200m or so. It felt weird because I was suddenly running with a whole different group of people, and it was a little hard to get back in the zone. I ran behind one dude for quite awhile and tried to maintain, but the humidity was really starting to get to me.

Around mile 2. I literally saw the man with the camera and was like "OK, look good for this picture right now". Result: success! (photo by Gregg Adams)

This entire time I had been under the impression that I was in 4th place for women, but when we got to the second turn around, I realized that there were only 2 women in front of me. Well, I'll be damned - my time is going to suck, but I was actually running for an award. The last mile was really a struggle - I felt like I was breathing in soup - but it was pretty cool having people coming the other way cheering for me as I was so far up in the women's race - "You go girl!" "Alright lady!" My personal favorite was when I overheard a small boy, maybe 8 or 9, scream to his dad "WHEN IS IT GOING TO BE OVER???" I feel ya kid, I feel ya. Finally staggered through the finish in 21:50 - blech - but I guess taking into consideration the long course and the weather (and the fact that I was kind of lazy about this race) I couldn't really complain. And I won't lie, even though I got 3rd by a LOT, it was pretty cool repping GBTC at a race in DC (and winning back my race entry in cash. Hell yes!) Overall, a pretty decent day. I would absolutely recommend this race to anyone in the DC area - it's the same weekend as several other higher profile 5Ks, but despite the turnaround mixup I really felt like they did a great job, and what you get for the price is hard to beat!

So those were my 5Ks. Also, I signed up for a marathon on my birthday. I may or may not have had a significant amount of wine to drink that day. So about that whole "training for a race thing?" Welp, I'm training for the Via Marathon, September 8, 2013. Let's do it. 

New Bedford Half Marathon (belated) Race Report

aka, the least deserved massive PR I have ever run.  I don't mean this as a humblebrag - I legitimately have NO IDEA how I ran the race I ran at New Bedford. Yes - my half PR has always been soft compared to my marathon and 5K times, and yes, it's been 3 years since I've run one - but let's be honest here...those have been 3 years of not the best training and almost no racing. Looking back on my training reveals that in the 2 months leading up to the race, I only ran over 30 miles in a week twice, and I did exactly 2 runs over 10 miles. So what changed? The only thing I can think of is: DANCE. Lots and lots and lots of dance have apparently turned me into a way better runner. So...anyway...race report!

Race day arrived and it was FREEZING. The last time I ran this race, in 2010, the weather was in the 50s or 60s - pretty legit for the middle of March. When I woke up on Sunday my phone told me that it was 28 freaking degrees outside...um, no. I spent pretty much the entire morning trying to figure out what I was going to wear for the race. Capris? Undershirt? Armwarmers? High socks? After a very slow 10 minute warmup and peeing behind a random bush, I eventually decided on armwarmers and knee socks (knee socks which I have never worn to run in before; this will be relevant later). In retrospect I looked ridiculous, but whatever. I made it back to the car with a few of my teammates and it. was. COLD. And WINDY as all get out.

Semi-naked. Why are we doing this again??

The sheer number of people at the start made things a little bit better, but still, I was raring to get running so I could stop freezing to death. When the horn sounded, Brianna, Joy, and I took off together, but no sooner had we gotten out of the starting gate than I see Brianna flying through the air and landing with a thud on the ground next to me. What can you do in that situation? I looked back and she seemed OK, so I continued on alone (I later came to find out that she actually passed me at some point in the race and beat me by like 2 minutes. TROOPER!). Mile 1 - 6:54. Whoa, girl. I had been prepared for the first mile to be something ridiculous like that, though, so I focused on just relaxing and getting into a groove. There was something in my eye that was driving me absolutely insane, and when I went through the second mile in 7:14 I started to get concerned, because I didn't feel calm, or relaxed. I felt like crap at this pace, and the negative thoughts started swirling: oh, you KNEW this was going to be a disaster; this is what you get when you didn't train for the damn race! Idiot. Try and relax. Look at all of these people passing you. UGH, mile 2, and I already hate everything, this is awful. Not my finest hour mentally. Things didn't improve as we headed over the 3 increasingly large hills that led to THE hill just after mile 3. On the third buildup hill, I remember thinking that maybe this was the big hill...and then remembering for some unknown reason that there was a fence on the left side of the big hill...and this hill had no fence in sight. Between the surprise rollers and the fact that mile 3 came in at 7:24, a mental breakdown was imminent. The wind was in my face, my body felt tense, I just couldn't find a rhythm. Mentally, I was freaking out. 

And then, straight ahead, was THE hill. At least half a mile of climbing up into the distance. I tried to reel in my unraveling mind with the only thing I could think of to hold on to: RELAX. I tried to relax. I tried to tell myself that the stream of people passing me were going out too fast. I tried to reassure myself that the race wasn't going to be won here, that I wasn't going to lose a PR because of a slower mile split on this hill, but I could if I let my mental game implode at mile 4. I finally came through the mile mark in 7:29 - I expected that split to be slow, but it was still a blow to my confidence. Still, I thought, if I just keep THAT pace for the rest of the race, I can still get a PR. And I also reminded myself that I was heading into the most glorious section of the course, a gentle downhill section stretching about 4 miles which on this day had the added bonus of a tailwind. 

I told myself: CRUISE. The pack had started to spread out by this point, and I finally started passing some people, although others were passing me. But I was much calmer about that now - I suddenly felt light and free, and every time someone passed me who looked to be working a whole lot harder, I told myself that they would wind up coming back to me. In many cases, that turned out to be true. Mile 5 was a 7:08 - clearly quite the turnaround! Suddenly I felt completely relaxed and fabulous at this pace, and a tiny ray of hope started to peek through. Maybe this would be OK? Around this time, my brain also decided that it would be a good idea to start playing "Larger Than Life" by the Backstreet Boys on loop...I can't even think of the last time I listened to that song, so this was pretty random. 

For the next few miles, I just locked in and let myself roll. I knew that at some point we were going to turn into the wind, so I was trying to make sure I wasn't trashing my legs before that happened. You know that they always say "trust your training", but in this race, there wasn't much there to trust. I had to hope that my legs were strong enough not to completely crash on me somewhere in this, the longest distance I had run in almost a year. Around mile 7 or 8, I started to realize that the side of my left foot sort of felt like it was...hot. Slash burning. I had a brief thought of "oh, shit, I shouldn't have worn these ridiculous socks, and I'm probably getting a blister there right now", but sort of put it out of my head until later.

We made the turn off of the downhill, heading along the water. The wind hadn't hit at it's hardest just yet, but there was definitely a change from 'ahh, gliding downhill' to 'OK, now you're going to have to work a little bit'. Still, coming through the 8 mile mark, I was still feeling great. If the wheels were going to come off it was going to happen soon, but I tried to keep myself in the moment and not worry about what was ahead. There was a little bit of an uphill at about 8.5, and I powered up it past 2 other women, duking it out on the hill. One again, I felt a little surge of excitement that I was RACING this thing - not just surviving, but actively seeking out other runners to pass. And it felt good.

Just after making the pass. Let's just take a minute to talk about how inappropriately dressed I am for a sub-40 degree day. To be fair...I wasn't cold after the first 2 miles of the race.

And then, it didn't feel good, because we made the turn into the wind, and HOLY SHIT. Not only was it freezing cold, but it was also straight into my face, and brutal. Again, I tried to calm myself down and get myself to relax. "Everyone else is running into this same wind," I told myself, "so shut up and get it done". We were at 10 miles now, and it was now or never. I still hadn't fallen much off the 7:08-7:10 pace, and with each passing split I became more shocked and giddy that somehow I was going to run a giant PR off of 25 miles a week. The pack was too spread out to really draft off of anyone, but I tried to tuck in as best I could behind the line of runners, hoping that maybe even a little bit of the wind would be blocked. After 2 brutal miles along the beach, during which I managed to only slow down into the 7-teens, we finally turned back into the city. 2 miles to go. By now, my legs were starting to ask what the hell was happening, and why we were still running. Mile 11-12 seemed to take an ETERNITY. I had somehow managed to isolate myself between 2 packs of people, and so it felt like I was running completely alone. And then, just after the 12 mile marker - THE hill.

My thoughts at this moment in time: FUUUUUUUUUUUU-you can fill in the rest

I kind of wanted to throw myself down in the road. AND I was utterly disappointed to find that there were no bagpipes at the crest of the hill this year. Having made it to the top, I thought that the worst was over...but the half mile that led to the finish seriously seemed to go on for an eternity. In my remembrance of the course, you basically ran up the hill, turned a corner, and it was downhill to the finish. But alas, in real life, there was about half a mile stretch of flat/slightly uphill road before that glorious downhill turn. I continued cursing the course, running in general, and the now-throbbing blister on my foot (as it turns out, it was a blood blister the size of like, 2 quarters) until I finally hit that downhill. And then...I'm pretty sure I flew past 10 people as I kicked into gear, knowing that I was FINALLY almost there. 1:35:03. 

I definitely was happy when I crossed that line. Mostly happy to be done, happy I hadn't completely failed, and sort of in disbelief that I had just PR'd by 3 1/2 minutes. I mean, what? I knew that my half PR was sort of soft, but I couldn't have guessed that it was THAT far below what I was capable of, especially given my less-than-stellar training over the months (and honestly, years) leading up to this race. And of course, I wasn't COMPLETELY happy because I missed breaking 1:35 by 3 seconds. GAH.  After the race, I quickly realized how incredibly cold it actually was, so I found my teammates and we headed back to the car to grab our gear. On our way, I ran into Kelly! My first running buddy in Boston, my mentor who got me into marathons - and I haven't seen her in years! I attempted to cool down with Joy, Anna, and Brianna, but after about half a mile of hobble jog/walking, I gave up and went to catch up with Kelly instead. We grabbed seafood chowder and chatting - so nice to see her again after so long! 

After the race we headed to a local bar ("Phlanges?" was what we heard over the phone, actual name of the bar: Sliante)...it was St. Patrick's Day, after all! And so I enjoyed a porter and basked in that PR glow.

Post race celebrations: basically the only reason we run. PS, those are not our medals from the race, but random beads that we were given at the bar. 

It was a great day, overall. But the most ridiculous part of the day was yet to come...because as soon as I got back to Boston, I'll give you one guess as to where I was headed. I'll give you a hint: it involved dancing for 2 hours straight. That's right, we had our first full runthrough with the band for Heartbeat! And really, what better way to cap off a half marathon PR than dancing?

New Bedford Half Marathon - 3/17/13

New Bedford, MA

1:35:03

547/3135 overall

54/384 F20-29

Home

[As with everything that I do on this blog these days, this comes way after the fact - I contemplated not writing anything, but it felt odd to just move on to the next race report without mentioning Boston in some way]

I wore my 2010 Boston jacket to work on Marathon Monday because I was thinking about everyone who was running the race. And truth be told, as I watched the elite races unfold and excitedly checked my phone for updates on all of my GBTC teammates between patients, watching as several friends ran incredible races, I was a little jealous that I wasn't racing. I texted my friend Joy - "Uh oh, I think I might want to do another marathon!" I was caught up in the excitement, even though I wasn't actually there for the first time in 4 years. I couldn't have guessed that all of that excitement would be transformed into sadness and anger by the end of the day, and that the jacket that I had put on that morning in solidarity with the marathoners would take on a whole new meaning.

There's so much I could have written over the past couple of weeks, and saying it now would really only be repeating things that have already been said. My personal favorite piece is this one: http://www.logicoflongdistance.com/2013/04/a-bomb-is-opposite-of-marathon.html. But I can tell you that when I walked into the waiting room to get my next patient and saw those headlines, those images on CNN, I felt like I had been absolutely punched in the gut. Many people have spoken about how runners, as a community, have really felt the effects of these events very personally, as we are such a tight knit community and the marathon is such a joyous celebration of that. I was right on board with those sentiments, but there was another reason that I think I was hit harder by all of this than I have been by any other atrocity that has taken place in my lifetime. And that's because in that moment, I realized that Boston is my home. You never imagine that something so horrifying could happen somewhere that you live - in a race you've run, where friends have stood to cheer for you, on a street you walk down every week to get to track practice. And seeing those familiar places turned into a warzone was horrifying. My heart ached for the families, the victims, the runners who didn't get to finish and those who saw their achievements overshadowed by people who seem to believe that by causing chaos that they will prove some kind of point. And as many have said, Boston has clearly shown that we are stronger than that.

I had planned a trip back to visit Andrew last weekend long before these events occurred, and the shock of waking up to head to the airport Friday morning and seeing BU Alert texts about "manhunt", "shootings", and "lockdown" was beyond anything I've ever experienced before. On my flight, every TV was tuned to the news. I was lucky enough to catch a cab and was able to get to my apartment - the streets were a ghost town, even though it was the first truly beautiful spring day of the year. I don't think I have ever been happier to see Andrew in my life as when I walked through that door. It felt like a movie, watching the drama unfold as we "sheltered in place". And then, when it was all over, the elation, pride, and joy that I felt for the city that I've come to know as home was beyond compare.

I posted to facebook that night that "in the end, most people are AMAZING." And through all of this, the tragedy, the sorrow, the utter insanity of the entire thing - the beautiful, the good, and the strong are what have risen above. And I'm absolutely honored to be able to live, to run, and to love in a city filled with so much strength and love. I'm proud to call Boston my home.

Johnny Kelly statue in the Newton Hills, 4/21/13

The Great Stew Chase 15K Race Report

*This post was written over the span of about 3 weeks, so apologies for the horrible grammar, skipping back and forth between tenses, etc*

Know how you know you're having a really good race? When you think to yourself in the midst of mile 6 "huh, I think I just might be having a breakthrough right now." This is the story of an unexpected breakthrough, and of how I learned that sometimes you have to just lay it on the line and see what you can do.

Prerace GBTC crew!

Photo from Great Stew Chase facebook page

I was up bright and early Sunday morning to a cold, calm day and a light dusting of snow on the ground. I don't think at any time during the morning I ever got nervous, because this was of course not a race. It was simply a good excuse to get my long run done. With 10 GBTC ladies racing, we were quite an intimidating pack in our matching red jackets, and as we headed out on the warmup I had to smile. Although I've technically been running for Greater Boston for almost 4 years, this was the first time that I've truly felt like a part of the team, and its a great feeling. My legs felt like total crap on the warmup, which of course led to the typical spiral of "why am I doing this, this is going to be awful, I haven't even RUN 9 miles in the last 6 months let alone raced it..." I still wasn't really nervous, just much less excited. For some reason I decided to wear racing flats, which I haven't ever worn for anything longer than 6k. Whatever, see what happens, right?

GBTC pack!

Photo by Krissy Kozlosky

It was lightly snowing as we stood on the start line, and then without much fanfare we were off. I initially kind of stayed at the back of the GBTC pack, but eventually passed Joy and found myself running in flying V formation with Taylor and Brianna. Well, this is new. It's been so long since I had teammates to work off of in a race, and its thrilling. In the back of my mind I was vaguely aware that both of these girls are faster than me, but I couldn't seem to make myself care about that fact...until we came through the mile in 7:05. "Shit!" I didn't know what I was doing. Taylor, running next to me, says "don't worry, just go with it until it starts feeling bad". And so I take a leap of faith and do just that. The next mile is 7:10, I'm still hanging with our little trio, and perhaps strangest of all, the pace just...doesn't feel that bad. I'm not pushing at all, I just feel like I'm relaxing and letting my legs turn over; just letting it happen. This is confusing but I decide to just go with it (sensing a theme here?)...after all, what do I have to lose? I pass Taylor just before mile 3, which comes in 7:05. Pretty sure my most recent 5ks have been slower than this.

Brianna has pulled ahead by this point, and so I decide to do the only logical thing I can think of in a race where for some reason I'm feeling great: I start reeling her in. By mile 4 (a bit of a slowdown in 7:20 or so), I've caught her, and now I find myself in a position I never thought I would be in: leading a pack of GBTC girls. We head into a business park ("scenic" is not a word I would use to describe this race) and head towards a hill. Things aren't so effortless now, but I try to keep my fear of an impending breakdown on check. A hill looms in the distance, one I assume is the big hill Joy told me about before the race. "Nice and relaxed, right on up", I think to myself, in a display of mental fortitude that seems crazy to me as soon as I think it. I crest the hill, home free or so I think....until I turn the corner and am staring down an absolute monster of a hill. All the positive thoughts in the world won't help me as I drag my suddenly exhausted legs upward. This time my thoughts are along the lines of "this hill is chewing me up and spitting me out", and to add insult to injury, at that very moment a fellow PT student from Spaulding flies by. "These hills suck, don't they?" she says, and then she's gone, leaving me to gasp and bemoan my lack of hill training as I watch her fade off into the distance.

This, I realize, in the moment when I have to decide. Whether I give up and lose myself here on this never ending hill or push on to glory. And while my mile up the hill is 7:45, as soon as I crest the top I'm right back into racing mode - where's Mary? How far ahead is Katie? How much distance do I have on Brianna? At the turnaround I'm able to judge how much of a cushion I have, while also finding the energy to cheer for my teammates as they go by. And as we head down the hill, the relaxed feeling returns...I might not be out of the woods yet, and there's definitely still a chance to crash and burn, but for the moment I've made it through the darkness alive.  Clearly, my legs agree since the downhill mile comes in at 6:43 (notably, the first time I have EVER seen a sub 7 mile in a race over 6K). Off in the distance I can see Mary and Katie duking it out, and I vow to keep my eye on them. Will I catch them? Doubtful...but the least I can do is keep them in my sights.

Coming back out of the business park with a 7:18 is the moment I realize that things are really happening right now...and with 2 miles to go, why not just go for it? It's funny, because every mile of this race I've told myself "just keep going with this pace, see what happens" with the expectation that at some point I'm just going to drop off and lose it. But here I am, with 2 miles to go, and still holding on...so why not hold it? I glance over my shoulder to assess the situation behind me - Brianna is maybe 300 m back, and I know that holding her off isn't going to be easy, but if there's one thing that can light a fire under my ass, it's having someone on my tail.

The last 2 miles of the race are difficult, and annoying, as the course goes through turn after turn and we cross back and forth across the street to follow the tangents. It literally seems like this happened every 2 minutes, which gets old pretty fast. I can still see Katie in the distance, and I'm aware that Brianna is somewhere close behind me, which motivates me even more to keep up the pace. There are plenty of small hills, rises and falls, but at this point they seem to balance each other out.  We finally make the final turn that leads to the finish, and beautifully, there's a long, gentle downhill...and now, finally KNOWING that I'm going to make it, and that I can stop waiting for the crash because it's never going to come, I fly. I pass 2 more people in this stretch and make up some time on Katie, and when I look at my watch to see a 6:54 I almost burst out laughing. Once again, I don't see sub-7 miles in distances over 5K, especially not in the last mile. I just don't. Except for the fact that I just did.

Once we pass the 9 mile mark time seems to slow down, as things always do late in the race when the finish line is so close and yet so far. I see two of my speedier teammates cheering as I give one last push through the finish line. 1:07.

Finish face..attractive, no?

Photo from the Great Stew Chase 15K facebook page

 Brianna, Taylor, and Jenny come streaming through the finish soon after me, and we head back into the building to get warm. I'm still kind of figuring out what to do with myself - I can't BELIEVE that I ran the time I just did, and the fact that I beat the 3 girls behind me makes things even more ridiculous. To make matters even crazier, I hear through the grapevine that the course was long - somewhere between 9.5-9.6 miles. Now, I know, I KNOW that my time is my time and I mean, I am beyond thrilled to have just hit 7:12 pace for almost 10 miles. But the little voice in the back of my brain that understands 'hey, so you might have just closed in on 7 flat pace for a 15K' is also kind of hard to ignore.

And even now, finally finishing this blog post almost 3 weeks later, I can't quite figure out how I did it. My mileage has been pretty lame, I haven't done ANY long runs, besides doing miler-style track workouts every week there is nothing that makes me deserving of the kind of time I just ran. I will say that I think my mental game has GREATLY improved lately - call it maturity, or doing more hard workouts on the track, but my head was 100% in the race the entire time during this race, even at those moments when I really felt like something awful was happening. 

But then again, I do have something else working in my favor. Because after the race, I headed back to Cambridge, and spent the next 5 hours of my life doing this:

Dancing "Belief" for the OnStage National Choreography Month Showing

Photo by Jessi Haggerty

I think this whole crazy pairing of dancing and training for races might just go together better than I expected. :)

Great Stew Chase 15K - Lynn, MA

1:07:04

51/265 overall

9/52 F0-39 (sidenote - holy GIANT age group, Batman!)

11/100 overall women

In which I rediscover my love for running on the 5th lap of an indoor mile

It's a familiar scenario, and yet totally foreign, standing there in the clerking area as "last and final call for the women's mile" echoes through the indoor track. I've stood there a thousand times before, but this time is different. There are no pre race superstitions, no one last song that I just have to hear as I run striders down the backstretch. I'm not even wearing spikes, just some racing flats that I got for free through a Mizuno promotion, and that I've worn for a single tempo run and a disastrous cross country race.  There are no expectations.  I don't know what I'm doing, but somehow I've wound up here, almost 5 years after I figured my track career was over for good, ready to race the mile.

I am standing next to my teammate, Joy, who also happens to be the reason that I am here, nervously hopping from foot to foot and trying to decided if I should retie my shoelaces again. As I told Joy after she coerced me into doing this race between 800s on Tuesday: "I don't think I would ever do anything if it wasn't for peer pressure". Someone else convinced me to run my first marathon, I ran my first 800 to try to impress a distance runner boy, many a long run in my life would never have been had someone not been meeting me. And Joy has lately been the instigator in getting me back to workouts, getting me to race cross country, and most recently, getting me to race this mile. I keep telling her I'm just going to lock in behind her and pretend its a workout, all the while hating her guts. She tells me that she guarantees I'm going to beat her. I legitimately have no clue what's going to happen; I've done exactly 2 track workouts since taking 3 week almost completely off due to bronchitis in December, and I only last week finally managed to pull my weekly mileage over the 30 mile barrier. I also spent 2 hours in dance rehearsal the day before, and my legs feel like lead as I attempt to do some strides. I feel like I could very well run a 6:30 mile at this point.

After spending the entire day trying to deny that I was going to do this ridiculous thing, suddenly I'm standing on the gentle curve of the starting line, bouncing up and down in that pre race ritual that I've never been able to shake. 3 jumps, shake out the right leg, shake out the left leg...from the 55 hurdles to the marathon, some things never change. Step up to the line, and there we are. The girl to my left says good luck, to my right, Joy whispers "don't go out too fast".  And suddenly we are off, and it's begun. Somewhat to my dismay, I find myself running in a pack of about 5 girls near the front of the heat - but I don't panic. Relax, self, just relax, and lock in. I have no idea how fast we're going and am dreading rounding the corner to see a 39 or something equally absurd on the clock, so I am pleased when we come through the lap at 44 or so. Right on target. It occurs to me during the second lap how equally pleasing and obnoxious it is to be running with this pack. I feel extremely relaxed - almost too easy to be racing - but do I make a move? I decide that it's too early to really assess the situation and stick in my groove - straight 45s. On lap 3 one of the girls in the pack abruptly cuts in front of me, and I almost lose my footing and take a dive over the rail, and later I step on someone's lost hip number, which sticks to the bottom of my shoe and makes an obnoxious slapping noise with each step. Of course - I latch on to stupid annoyances like that when I'm racing, so I have to giggle to myself. We come through the 4th lap right around 3:00 - exactly where I want to be...however, the question is, will I be able to hold on to this? What's going to happen now?

I continue on with my little pack through lap 5, passing one or two girls who start to drop back and keeping my focus on the shoulder of the girl right in front of me. Still inexplicably feeling like I am racing, and yet, not like I am dying, I come around the curve into the straightaway and a thought forms in my mind: "Holy shit, I am having so much fun right now!" It's all I can do not to break into a smile, because here I am, finally, racing and pushing and for the first time in so long, loving it. I'm racing. I'M RACING!

It occurs to me at some point that I have a shot in hell of breaking 6 minutes. But things finally starting to catch up to my barely-prepared legs, and while I try my hardest to assemble some sort of a finishing kick over the last 400 meters, I just don't have enough to pass the other two members of my pack, who finish less than a second ahead of me, or to dip under 6 flat. I finish in 6:06, a far cry from my 5:44 PR, but almost exactly where I seeded myself - a seed which I had thought of as basically an impossibility.

I cannot stop smiling after the race. A 6:06 mile - so pedestrian in the grand scheme of track, and even in the grand scheme of my own racing - but still, in this moment, a milestone. There was a time not long ago when I honestly questioned whether I would ever care about running enough again to work for a PR, to really race to the point of making it hurt, that red line. And somehow, what it took to rekindle that spark was the most unexpected of things, and yet so simple: one mile. That's how all running careers start, so in a way it's fitting that maybe this is how mine will begin again - older, wiser, free of expectations and superstitions, and simply running for the joy of the race and that feeling, amidst screaming legs and lungs on fire, that beneath it all you are really having the time of your life.

Photo by Tom Derderian

Being both

Every Friday, I take a 2 hour ballet/pointe class through BU. Last week, this class happened to occur about 45 minutes after I had raced a "5K" (actually 3.5 mile) race and placed second. After scarfing down a sandwich and struggling into my leotard, I was at the barre doing plies and frappes with the rest of the class, legs exhausted, calves screaming every time I had to hold a releve. What are you doing?! my body was screaming at me. This is insane!

Sometimes, as I looked around the class during center work, and saw girls who could pirouette more cleanly than me, had better extensions than me, could master quick footwork better than me, I thought, ah, if only I hadn't stopped taking ballet for the past 8 years. I am lucky to possess a fair amount of qualities that naturally lend me to dance - long legs, flexible back, and (my one claim to fame) really, really great feet - and there are times when I wonder what could have been had life worked out differently, if I had devoted myself completely to dance. But in glancing around the class again, I had another thought: how many of these girls have ever RACED a 5K? Or a marathon? Or known the feeling of one last 800 as the rain starts to come down, pounding the track until you can't see, and there's nothing but you and your breath and the feeling of being so completely alive?

The thought works in reverse too: how many of those who I run with have ever known the feeling of finally landing that turn, of being so caught up in the music and the movement that you almost feel like you've transcended into a different plane. How many of them have felt the ache of a long day in pointe shoes, or the chill-inducing joy of seeing a dance that you created, alone in your living room, come to life on the stage?

Looking at my training over the past few months, it's easy to wonder if I've stopped caring about running, lost motivation, whatever. But really, I don't think it's so much that I've lost running as that I've found (re-found) dance. And when I think about how rare it is to be able to have not one, but two passions - to know what it is to push my body to the limit in a race AND to fly on stage in front of the audience, to be both a badass runner with my race face on AND a ballerina in pointe shoes and a bun, to be both - I mostly think I'm pretty damn lucky. And sometimes it may mean I run less miles in a week, but it's worth it for the opportunity to be both.

Accountability

*pokes head in sheepishly*

Well goodness, guess I've found out what happens to my blog when my training is in the tank...with not much happening on the running/inspiration/racing front, I just decide to forgo posting. Well, not anymore! I have decided that at the absolute minimum, I'm going to post my weekly training here to keep me accountable, not only to my training but to this blog. I really like to write, and I haven't been doing much of it lately, so I think this is a good way to slowly slide back into more frequent writing, whether it be about running or something else (I've had a real urge to write some fiction lately, but I always just feel like every fiction I write is so...awkward. And the main character is always just me with a different name and a different job. So that needs some work.)

Anyway...what have I been doing? I'm ashamed to admit that this past week was the first week in almost 2 months that I have cracked the 30 mile barrier. I mean...what? The good news about this is, I don't feel terribly "un-fit", mostly because I have been religiously going to GBTC practices this fall and doing the workouts (to what end, I have no idea...I really can't see myself racing any time in the near future, but the fact that I've been motivated enough to get to practice is something in and of itself.) The other thing is that I have been dancing a TON this semester. I have 3 hours of rehearsal a week, a 2 hour ballet class on Fridays, as well as teaching 2 kid's classes and choreographing one of the 3 pieces I'm in. Dance isn't something I've discussed a ton on this blog, but it's something that I rediscovered my passion for while I was in NYC and so I am back at it. I honestly believe that dancing really does make me a stronger runner, partially by serving as cross/strength training that works a whole different muscle set (hello, injury prevention!) and also just as an overall strength and power workout. Probably more importantly, it makes me outrageously happy. Which is actually the point, isn't it?

So, we begin with week 1 of the comeback tour. I didn't run with a watch all week except for at practice because I was too lazy to charge my Garmin. Who really gives a crap what I ran for a random easy run anyway? At the moment, not me.
M - 6.2 easy, Dean Road loop. Nothing particularly memorable about this one. Nice weather.
T - GBTC workout - mile repeats @ 10K pace. 4 x mile in 6:54, 6:56, 6:51, 6:46 with 1 lap jog recoveries. Clearly that is not my current (or ever) 10K pace...man I felt like a baller during this workout. I consistenly dread track workouts when I'm on my way there and on the first rep, but by the end I'm just like yesssss everything is wonderful. A little over 8 miles total.
W - 5.3 easy, I honestly remember nothing about this run.
R - OFF. Thursdays are a bit insane since I have class, teach class, and have rehearsal...however, I definitely have time to run in the morning if I would just haul my lazy ass out of bed, so if I choose to take a Monday off (as I am today)...well, Thursday has to happen. 1 hour of dance rehearsal.
F - 7 easy, JP, first run in AGES where I've actually added on distance because I wanted to keep running. Listened to "Into The Fire" from The Scarlet Pimpernel on repeat. Gloriousness. Followed by 2 hour ballet class.
Sat - OFF. College football season and running on weekends are not conducive to each other. That is all.
Sun - 3.9 easy, SO LAZY. Followed by 2 hours rehearsal.

Total for week: 30.6 miles running, 5 hours dance

So. Yup. Welcome back. My goals for this comeback, which I am putting out here to hold myself accountable for the world to see, are to race at the GBTC indoor track invite in January (possibly shoot for 3K PR), attempt to break 20 in the 5K on the road in the spring of 2013, and to be ready for an attempt at a PR marathon in November 2013. Let's do it.

National running day magic

Because I have been doing far too much bitching when I DO post on this blog, may I give you the story of one of the most magical runs I've ever had, which happened to occur on national running day.

Lately I have been really struggling with getting out the door to run before about 7 pm...not that that's a big deal because it's summer and it stays light, but it's not really conducive to longer runs unless I want to eat dinner at like 10. I had a shorter run on the schedule for today but then I realized that it's going to be like 87 on Sunday...and wouldn't it be much nicer to run 10 miles on this glorious 60 degree afternoon than in an inferno over the weekend?

So off I went. At 6:30 (after being a lazy pile of crap and eating trail mix and watching the series 4 finale of Doctor Who for the second time...STOP JUDGING). The first mile my legs were really heavy which I kind of figured considering I took a tough dance class last night, but I was still kind of like 'ehh, not sure if I'm actually going to make it 10 miles tonight'. And then...I hit the Hudson River.  Which I'm kind of obsessed with. Dare I say almost as much as Central Park? I mean...it's a river...so I'm not really sure why I enjoy it so much more than the Charles...but whatever. I'm a fan. Anyway, my legs were starting to feel pretty good and it was looking like it was going to be a pretty sweet sunset. And then the slow build of awesome began.

As I was running by the 79th St cafe thing there was a cluster of people looking up at a tree...and well, if there's a cluster of people, there has to be something interesting. And it was a peregrine falcon!! I sort of have a thing for birds of prey so I was really excited by this. I kept running and eventually reached my turnaround point...which I had conveniently set up to be at the Intrepid museum, new home of the Enterprise space shuttle! So I saw the space shuttle in real life. It may be the nerdiest thing I have ever said that I was really excited by this, but I have been fascinated by astronomy since I was a kid so...I was pumped.

As soon as I turned around it started raining, and I love nothing more than running in the rain. It was perfect - steady and enough to be cooling, but not like 'holy shit we're gonna die and my shoes are soaked' downpour.  I decided to run out onto the longer pier at maybe 68th St to add some mileage and check out the view, since the clouds were looking pretty awesome by this point. Then I turned around, and there was a  FULL ARCH RAINBOW. I can't even describe. The rest of the run I was just so giddy with how well things had been going that I wasn't even thinking about anything besides how much fun I was having. My pace was actually significantly faster than I would have expected for my first double digit run in 2 months and I felt great...so that didn't hurt as a nice little ego boost either. :)

It was amazing to have a run where all I felt was joy. I think it's been rare lately for me to go running and a) WANT to go further than the randomly specified distance I picked out for the day or b) be having fun while I'm doing it. It's been more of a chore which isn't what I want. So to have both of those things happen on the same day - conveniently - national running day - well, it was pretty great. To remember that maybe not all the time, but for the most part, RUNNING IS AWESOME. And I am lucky and grateful to be in a position where I can run along the Hudson River without a care in the world besides what awesome birds of prey, rainbows, monuments, vistas, and generally incredible things my legs are going to lead me to next.

Looking up

This week I ran 31.1 miles. Nothing crazy - in the grand scheme of my running life we're talking like sophomore year cross country mileage. I skipped one day that I probably shouldn't have because I decided to spend the day frolicking around NYC [here for a summer clinical, it's my favorite city IN THE WORLD and I am basically over the moon with happiness. Although I miss Andrew.] but I'm OK with that because hi...first weekend to myself in New York. So 31.1 miles...the majority of them easy, none of them workouts, nothing to write home about. BUT...this week, for the first time in a LONG time...I felt like I was finally going somewhere.

I feel like I've spent the last 4-odd months, and hell, to be honest, the majority of the last couple of years, in just a weird holding pattern with running. Ever since Baystate 2010, there's been injury after injury, no racing, thyroid issues up the butt, and the life stress of school on top of it all. Looking back, I can hardly believe that that person who ran a 3:22 was me; it seems like some sort of bizarre and miraculous dream. I don't feel like I'm that runner anymore. I've been going through the motions, thwarted by injury at every turn, and basically done nothing worthwhile running-wise since then. I've stagnated, I've done just enough to avoid getting fat and even that hasn't been completely successful (NOT calling myself fat...but the ~10 pound weight gain over the past year I certainly could do without). And there have been times, especially over the past few months, where I've wondered: what is even the point? I felt ruined, mainly by this whole thyroid debacle. I'm not ashamed to admit that there have been times when I've been in tears wondering whether losing my thyroid has ruined me as a runner. Whether it took my speed, my competitive drive, my strength. I wonder whether I will EVER race well again I haven't since the surgery, not that there's a very large sample size to pick from since I think I've raced 3 times since then. And that's been hard, because it's not something I can easily talk about to anyone. I know at a certain point my mom and Andrew eventually grow really sick of hearing about it because, well, it's only running and who really cares if you never PR again, running's not your career. Don't you just do it because you love to run?

But then I remember. I AM that same runner who ran a 3:22 marathon. I did break 20 in the 5K. And there is NO reason why I cannot do those things again, besides that fact that I've been lazy - well, and injured. But that stopped being a good excuse 2 months ago. And, what the hell, it's going to be hard, it's not necessarily going to be pretty, and it may take awhile, but I'll be damned if I can't get back to being that runner again.

Which brings me, finally, back to my original point of this post. Dear lord, I do go off on some ridiculous tangents. But again I think I have approximately 4 readers if that, annd this blog is basically my brain dump so I DON'T have to torture my boyfriend or my mother...so deal with it.  SO - this week...running when I didn't feel like it and the weather was shit and my legs were tired from being on my feet all day...I felt like - hey, keep this up and you might actually go somewhere! So my hope is that maybe, just maybe, I finally have hit rock bottom of this running slump and that there's nowhere to go but up. Yeah, there's a loooong way to go to get back to the level of fitness I was at a year and a half ago...but can I do it? Sure.  And I think being here in NYC with the fabulousness of Central Park and random 5Ks all over the place might be just the thing to start the climb back to awesomeness. :)

The 116th Boston Marathon

Well then.
Where do I begin?

I felt a lot of things during this year's Boston Marathon. I felt pain (a LOT of pain). I felt fear. I felt disappointment. I felt joy, giddiness, happiness. I felt optimism and pessimism, self-loathing and self-affirmation. But the one emotion that I think I'll remember when I look back on April 16, 2012 is this: I felt love.

Never in my life have I ever experienced a crowd that made me feel more like a rockstar. Never have I had so many people on the course, on facebook, on twitter, on dailymile cheering me on and making me feel like I had done something to be proud of. And never have I been more aware of the fact that runners are my people. Those brave and crazy souls who made the journey from Hopkinton - they are like me. From a simple "are you OK?" from a woman who saw me walking to rub out a side cramp early in the race to the collective hoots of joy when the sun went behind the one minuscule cloud in the sky, just for an instant, the sense of camaraderie and of love for our sport was on pure display on Monday.  And long after I've forgotten the time I ran in the race (and trust me, it was as forgettable as they come), I will remember that.

SO - onward to my marathon report. I was awake before my alarm. I lay in bed in the dark contemplating, mostly with disbelief, the fact that I was running a marathon today.  This whole "not really training" thing left me far outside of my comfort zone, but damn it, I was doing the thing, and here it was. So I got up and drank a shooter of iced coffee, got my crap together and I left. It's weird standing at the train station where you leave to go to class every single day with the knowledge that today holds much greater possibilities. What I remember from the last time I ran Boston, and which I still loved this time around, was the train ride downtown. There were a few runners with their telltale orange bags on my train, each engrossed in thought or their ipods or a bottle of water, along with a surprisingly large number of regular people headed off to their jobs or whatever the day would bring. And the train was absolutely silent, yet full of the electric tingle of nervous energy. There's really nothing like it.

I made it to the Common around 6:30 and serendipitously (not a word, whatevs) was able to meet up with my friend Jen before things got too insane, and we got on a bus pretty quickly. As usual the bus ride out to Hopkinton was long and nervewracking, with each passing minute a reminder of "oh right, I have to RUN BACK". I found that playing Draw Something and checking facebook 400 times was an effective use of time. As I was randomly perusing blogs, the entry on "1000 Awesome Things" caught my eye:

#4 - Today: Today’s the greatest day you’ve ever lived. Today’s the only day you’ve ever lived. The past is gone, the future is far, nothing else matters, except where you are. AWESOME!

That was the perfect way to get me the mindset for the race - be where you are, don't worry about the past or the future, enjoy today. This moment. This opportunity. This experience.We got off the bus and it was already painfully clear that it was going to be HOT. People were already in tank tops and shorts as we walked from the bus to the athlete's village, not a good sign considering last time I was here everyone was bundled up. In

We arrived in the village and staked out our spot...and waited while the temps continued to rise. I took care of the usual pre-marathon needs, went to say hi to DailyMile friends Maddy and Norman, and just generally tried to walk off my nerves. After an epic texting struggle, I finally tracked down Joy, who had found a red sports bra for me the night before. After that there wasn't much time left. We made final outfit preparations, debated how many Gu Chomps to eat, and generally bounced around nervously.

GBTC ladies! Please note my incredible homemade GBTC bra. This did not survive long into the race.

Soon enough it was time to make our way down that long, long road to the start corrals. The walk seemed even longer this year, but it was less terrifying because I wasn't taking it alone. I tried to take a Gu, which was already hot and managed to trigger my gag reflex - not exactly a great beginning. As we walked past ascending numbered corrals, I lost my friends one by one...until I was being directed into corral 1 of the second wave. And all I could think was "holy shit, I'm here. How did I get here?" And then I started tearing up again, because, well, that's what I do at the beginning of marathons. In between this emotional storm I looked at the countdown clock and realized that we would be starting in about 20 seconds...well, there's no turning back now....and gunshot.

And then I was running. Running, may I add, like an IDIOT. For all of the times I told myself "go out slow", I got totally caught up in the giddiness of the moment. It was the exact opposite of the last time I ran Boston when I was like an angry gorilla on a rampage trying to get people out of my way. This time it was like "wheeee!! Downhill! I'm running a marathon! This isn't so bad! Hooray!" 7:48 was my first mile. No, I could not possibly be stupider. Whatever. The next couple of miles were in the high 7s/low 8s and I started feeling nauseous. And fearful. I was no longer smiling and I was suddenly terrified. Then I came to a shocking realization: it's 85 degrees out, SLOW DOWN. ENJOY THIS. And so that's what I tried to do.

The bad times kicked in pretty early. Within 5 or 6 miles I was legitimately concerned about my chances of finishing the race. The heat was utterly miserable. The one saving grace of everything was the crowd - holy crap, I've never experienced anything like it. I wrote my name on my stomach this year because I remembered wishing that I had last time, and man am I glad I did. Having people at every turn screaming your name, telling you you look great and to keep going - I never thought I could feed off the spectator support so much, but in a situation like Monday it became absolutely essential.

By 7 my pace was already dipping into the high 9s as I had started walking through water stops. I probably would have started this later, but there really was no point in trying to run through them since there was a traffic jam at pretty much every stop and you basically had to slow down/stop if you wanted a cup.  Over the previous few miles, I had been falling victim to the negative thinking that I knew would sneak up on me in this race - you're undertrained, your time is going to be shit, this is embarrassing, why are you even doing this? But around 7 or 8 I hit a turning point where I realized - yeah, my time is going to be shit. But you know what? WHO CARES. These people cheering for you don't care. Your friends don't care. And these people are all making you feel like a freaking rockstar - so enjoy it, damn it! And after that, I spent a lot more of my time smiling.  I yelled "On Wisconsin" at anyone I saw wearing Badger gear (there were several). I had a temporary Bucky tattoo on my back, which I got SO many comments on from fellow runners during the race, including one couple who started singing 'Varsity'. (I sang along. I almost cried. You guys don't even know.) I thanked volunteers. I told people that they were going to make it. I was happy.

The problem was, as determined as I was to have fun, running was becoming more and more of a struggle. The sun was just unrelenting...every time I would drench myself with water, it would be dry and I would be hot again 5 minutes later. Again, the spectators with their endless supply of spray bottles, cold sponges, sprinklers, water cups, etc were absolute saviors. I tried to take as many things from little kids as possible because it was clear that they absolutely were in awe of everyone out there (how freaking cool! Can you imagine, being a little kid handing out oranges and NOT wanting to grow up to run Boston someday?)

15K. LOOK HOW MUCH FUN I'M HAVING (in real life, I had slowed down a lot right before this, but then remembered this photo op from 2010 and made myself speed up and look cheerful. Bad news when you need to make yourself look happy at mile 9...) 

After 8 or 9, I actually hit a groove for a little while. I had gotten into a good system of taking advantage of every mister/water/whatever that I saw, which was keeping me wet and at a generally OK level of heat, and for a few miles I just kind of jammed along, enjoying the crowd and ignoring how many people were passing  me. We hit the gentle downhill towards Wellesley and there was actually some shade for awhile, which was glorious, and I was in pretty good spirits when I hit the scream tunnel (and actually a little surprised at how quickly the first half had seemed to go by).  The "KISS ME" gauntlet was as incredible as I remembered, it seemed to go on FOREVER. I actually had made up my mind that if there were any men in the line I would go in for a kiss (why not, right?) but alas, I didn't see any. Bolstered by the screams, I forged ahead, feeling I was ready for the second half.  And then...bad things started happening.

As I came up the slight incline that comes after Wellesley college, my left knee tightened up. It hurt, and I was confused. Knee pain...what is this? I guess it's a testament to how limited my brain function was at that point that I didn't even recognize the problem for the brewing IT band disaster that it was until a couple of miles down the road. At the time I took a quick walk break and then started up running again, hoping that something just needed to be knocked back into place, but the pain persisted. I would be doing a significant amount of walking for the remainder of the race as a result.

The epic Wellesley downhill was AMAZING - it was somewhat shaded, seemed to go on forever, and I just let myself go. I had stopped taking splits at the half when I became aware that things were probably about to go downhill pretty quickly, and I had no interest in seeing 13 minute miles start popping up on my screen.  I remember absolutely loving the area by Newton-Wellesley - the crowds were going crazy, there was music blasting from somewhere, and I think that's the point in the race (mile 16) when everyone starts to think about the fact that they might actually make it. Shortly after that was the glorious moment when the sun went behind this teeny cloud for literally 5 seconds - and you could hear every single runner on the course either sigh or yelp with joy. We made our way towards the firehouse and finally made the turn towards the Newton hills...which is when things went from bad to worse.

I became aware of a few things as I struggled up the first hill, which I have affectionately dubbed "Ass Panther Hill " (don't ask why.) First of all, every time I tried to start running, my knee would buckle in pain. Obviously - bad. Secondly, I was starting to get chills (yes it's hot out, no that's not good) and a sort of tunnel vision type phenomenon that was legitimately freaking me out. But the most distressing thing was the fact that I was honestly a bit disoriented. I run in the Newton hills at least once a week, it's my home turf and I know it well. So when I looked around and felt confused as to exactly where we were in the hills, and everything looked unfamiliar, I was extremely, extremely concerned. I did NOT want to pass out. Or end up in the hospital. Or give myself a long-term injury, for that matter. So I made the executive decision that there was going to be a significant amount of walking from here on out. I was frustrated with my body for failing me, but the voice in the back of my head kept whispering that I wasn't giving up, I was being smart. And so I continued on, albeit at a slower pace. I ran the downhills, since my knee was cooperating with them significantly better than on the uphills, tried to get some more fluids into myself, and continued my neverending quest for sprinklers and ice pops.

The rest of the Newton hills basically sucked. I was in pain, hot, afraid that I was about to succumb to heat sickness, and embarassed about the amount of walking I was being forced to do. But there were moments when things were OK. For example - in the midst of several people holding cups of water, there was a woman holding a grape popsicle. Literally, the only thing I wanted in life at that moment was that popsicle. She offered me this popsicle, to which I responded "OH GOD YES" (I wish I was joking. I am not.) and I got a good laugh from that. I trotted along, biting my popsicle. It was cold, and I was happy. I'm pretty sure I actually revert to being 5 years old during marathons. I do remember seeing my favorite sign on the hill, which said "If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl. Just keep going." (Of course, I also filled in the blank with the Firefly quote of "If you can't crawl, there'll be someone to carry you"...which actually became even more fitting later in the race)

I hit Heartbreak after what had felt like an extended walk break (in reality, it was probably like 2 minutes) and said aloud to myself "come on, you have to fucking try". So I started trying to run up Heartbreak. 30 seconds later, the pain in my knee was unbearable...well, at least I tried. The only consolation was that the big BC downhill was coming up...and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to run down THAT.  So as soon as I crested the hill I let gravity pull me along - and holy crap, BC was incredible. I don't know if I wasn't paying attention, didn't care, or if it was because I didn't have my name on me in 2010, but these drunk kids made me feel like I was some sort of celebrity. Absolutely screaming their faces off, offering high fives - it was spectacular. I just ran down that high five line grinning.  Also at that point one of the armed forces groups that was marching the route IN UNIFORM came by, and that was incredible because the entire crowd just started chanting "USA, USA, USA" in unison. Awesome.

Of course by now I knew any hope of a respectable time was out the window, and I was starting to feel truly awful. I took a quarter of a nuun in my water at the 22 mile water stop - couldn't decide if I was getting a little hyponaetremic (I had been drinking a LOT) or dehydrated. Not sure if it was a placebo or what, but it seemed to improve my outlook on everything except my knee situation. Since I still couldn't run for more than about a minute, I started off on a 1 min run/1 min walk plan that worked out pretty well for the rest of the "race". All I could think about coming into Cleveland Circle was "In like 5 minutes you get to see your friends!!! And when you see them you can't look like you're dying!" So as I came down the hill into Washington Square, I did my best to look like I wasn't ready to lie down and die in the road, which I was. So I was running when I saw them, even though I was also yelling "sorry it took so long!"

Oh my God. I have the best friends ever. First of all, they were all standing there screaming and waving all of these signs which I couldn't even comprehend at the time. But then, not only did they have freeze pops for me (4 of them, amazing) BUT THEY HAD ICE COLD DIET COKE. If an angel could have flown down from heaven and offered me one wish at that point in the race, it probably would have been Diet Coke. It was like delicious nectar of the gods and at that moment, I knew I was going to finish.

The last 2 miles, I just tried to have fun. My run-walk strategy was surprisingly allowing me to pass people who were dying more than me at this point in the race (I'm assuming since it was my knee, not the heat, that turned out to be the limiting reagent - when I WAS running I was running hard). The crowd was just ridiculous, and I found myself hamming it up for random people who were screaming my name (hey guy who called me sexy and told me I would make it, but then didn't get to high five me because I was already past - sorry about that! Glad you were a fan of the sports bra :P) Almost the next thing I knew, I was headed into Kenmore and the cheering was taken up by another 100%. Horns. Cowbells, Vuzuvelas. Absolute screaming, banging, insane, awesome. Coming through the part of Comm right before the underpass, I encountered a group of girls from my PT program who went absolutely INSANE when they saw me, which of course triggered me to start running just a little faster. I was almost done, and these people thought I was awesome no matter what, and I was HERE - I was going to finish the infernal Boston 2012. Only 21,606 people in the entire WORLD can say that, and I was one of them.

As we made the turn onto Hereford, my knee gave out again. Fuck. The frustration crept in again; I couldn't believe I was being forced to a walk this close to the finish line. And then something happened that I will probably remember for the rest of my life.

This gray-haired woman with glasses in a pink tank top came up on my right side. She looked at me, she took my hand, and she said "come on. You can do this." And she pulled me into a run. And I knew I would not stop running until I crossed the finish line. This was one of those things that, I don't know, you never expect would happen in real life. It seems like it's out of an inspirational movie or something. And since I'm the most stubborn, fiercely independent person you can imagine, it seems appropriate that this would happen to me. Because sometimes, you NEED someone to pull you along and tell you not to give up.  And that it doesn't matter if your time is crap or if things didn't go as planned...as long as you finish.

This is probably my favorite picture from the race - headed down Boyleston, eyes on the finish line. You can see my fairy godmother behind me in the pink - I wish I knew who she was. I hope I can do for someone what she did for me one day.

The finish line seemed like it was an eternity away, and all I could think with each step was IwanttostopIwanttostopIwanttostop. So when I finally crossed the line and I COULD stop, and it was OK...all I could do was breathe a sigh of relief. I had made it. I was still here. And though my 4:32:15 might say otherwise, I was a freaking runner who had just finished my 4th marathon. There was no taking that away.

The volunteers continued to be INCREDIBLE as I slowly made my way through the exit chute. The guy who gave me my water bottle was particularly great, yelling "Hey Audrey! You are awesome. You just finished the Boston Marathon!". I can't imagine that standing out in the heat watching people suffer was that much more fun than being the suffer-ee, so the enthusiasm was seriously appreciated. I gradually found my way out of the chute and made my way to the T while calling my mom to let her know I was alive (and I did NOT almost need to vomit in a planter this year! Epic success!!) I snagged a seat on the T and made my way back to my cheering crew, where I was legitimately treated like royalty. A random man who was spectating offered me a chair. My friends ran to the 7-11 to obtain me more popsicles and Diet Coke. And I sat there in my borrowed chair with my chafed feet and my dead legs, watching the runners who were still going by. And time be damned, I was happy.

Andrew helping me home post race. He gave me his shoes so I could take off my bloody/wet ones

I can't wait to put together a legitimate training cycle and RACE a marathon again. I'm antsy to start attacking PRs after almost 2 years of worthless training. But this time, just for a moment, it was enough just to know that running makes me happy, and that I am absolutely blessed to be able to experience that happiness that few others ever can, with the most wonderful friends and family behind my every step. When it comes down to it, that is enough.

No worries, Boston. I'll be back. Third time's the charm, right? ;)