March's arrival, Boston's thaw and what seems like the home stretch!

Wow, as bad as February was in Boston, it sure seems to have gone by quickly. Boston's sits about 4 inches/10cm from the all time snow record and we will probably break it with two small snowfalls over the next coming days but psychologically I feel like winter is over and it is time for things to warm up. At work, Tom joked about how there is always a march storm, which led me to giving him the evil eye. Seriously, though as far as I am concerned, the corner has been turned and it's time for some decent weather, as you can see below, even the parking meters are getting ready.

Even the parking meters have made an appearance and have their shades ready!

Saturday's run was again extremely fast (16miles @6:50min/mile or 4:15min/km) but unli ke last week, I felt pretty shit. It was a real struggle for the 2nd half of the run, which wasn't helped by the extreme congestion on the marathon course. I can only imagine how bad it is going to be on marathon day when more than 30,000 people will be on the course. On a positive note, there are only 5 long runs left before the marathon, it almost seems too easy.

My recent pace explosion on the long runs has left me thinking about my plan and strategy for race. I have promised the wife that this will be my last marathon that I do (unless someone asks me to pace them) and I am conflicted about whether I should. Basically, my main goal for this marathon is to not implode during the race but I also want to give it my all without ruining the experience. One of my running club friends who ran the race in 2013 fainted at mile 25 while on pace for a 2:58. So with 7 weeks to go, I have a lot of thinking to do as to what my strategy will be that day. In reality, a lot will depend on the BAA and where they seat me in the starting lineup as there will be 4 waves this year again, 10am/10:25am/10:50am/11:15am.  In all likelihood, we start at 11:15am, which after a 4:30am wake up will be quite a wait and challenge and will definitely influence my race day performace. I mean, how does one even make a pre-marathon pooping schedule with that time lag? (More on that later)

While I have been very serious about running up until this point, I have definitely taken a laisser-faire approach to the fundraising side. I (like most people) don't like harassing people to donate for money. While that hasn't been totally useless to this point that is obviously going to have to change.

First on the docket is a March madness basketball tournament fundraiser. 50% of your contribution will go towards my fundraising - the rest to the pot. The pot will have 4 prizes: 1st overall (30%), 2nd overall (5%), 1st place after round 1 (10%), and last place overall (5%). Please sign up even if you know nothing about college basketball. If you don't want to sign up, then feel free to head over directly to my fundraising page and make a donation. :-)

Thanks for reading!