13 Weeks to Boston

Exactly 13 weeks from today, I'll line up in Hopkington to make my way to the city of Boston in the marathon. I first ran the race in 2003, coming off a great race at Chicago the previous fall. I made several mistakes in preparation, including running a 50k race in February as a "training run." I found out that fatigued me more than I thought. The race went terribly. I had thoughts of running under three hours, only to realize five miles in that I was in trouble. The final 16 miles weren't so fun. I finished in 3:30, sunburned, depleted and dejected.

This time will be different. After a break from much running due to an illness and some other stuff, I've strung together about a month of solid training. I'm only running four times a week. The idea is to make the runs productive, much like my Harrisburg preparation. This isn't the way I want to train, it's the way I have to train without aggravating my still-balky Achilles problem. I'm mixing in two nights of swimming to offset the missed miles. There's no real way to replace running miles, of course. When I start to get into the peak weeks of training, I'll probably add in another day of running.

So far, training is going well. Last week, I ran 30 miles and swam another two. My long run is up to 15 miles, without many problems other than regular Achilles soreness. Thanks to a stomach problem a month ago, I'm off ibuprofen entirely. I'm stuck with ice if stuff hurts.

That leaves the big question of a goal for Boston. I want to be completely realistic. I don't have the capacity or really interest this winter in killing myself in training. The course is very tough, too. With all that in mind, my goal is to qualify again for Boston with a 3:15. That works out to 7:30 miles. I would also like to run as close to a negative split as possible. Boston starts downhill and really makes you go out too fast. This time, I won't fall into that trap.