Marathon Monday is here!

Last night Shirley said to me that I had been waiting to run the Boston marathon for so  long and I guess that's true. About 8 years ago, after Dan and I ran the Montreal half-marathon, I've had allusions of running Boston. It really wasn't until October 2012 that I got remotely serious about trying though. Still it will certainly be great to check this one off the list today!

The weather is a fickle beast and while cool temperatures will prevail, sadly it will likely rain a great deal of the day. No point in being bummed about it because it is what it is. Hopefully the crowds will brave the rain too.

I thought running with DFMC would just be another running group but I have have to admit as much as many of them aren't speed demons, it was great to be a part of this team and hear and experience their stories.

As I run today, I personally have been fortunate to not have any family members impacted by cancer but I run today for a great friend, Jess, whose mother passed away from an aggressive, difficult to know you have cancer, and for another fallen angel, Matty, whose mom, Sandra, has made it a mission to make sure her son is remembered and that others don't have to experience similar loss.
While I am not naive in thinking we are close to cures for all the different forms of cancer, I hope that the over 4.5 million dollars DFMC has raised this year so far will help get us closer to that eventual reality. I really hope there is a day when DMFC doesn't have to exist.

Anyways - time to shower, put some bodyglide on, and head out to Hopkinton. See you on the other side of the finish line :-)

14 hours to go! At least it won't snow.....

Pretty quick post here as I watching the Canadiens try to come from behind in Game 3 vs the Sens.

Overall a pretty chill day which is just what I needed before this race. Had a nice nap during the Predators/Blackhawks game but still kinda tired. I have to admit I am not nervous at all at this point, which I hope means a good night sleep and a few good poops in the morning :-)

Shirley made me make a last minute marathon attire change since my green shirt was clashing with the turquoise singlet, so I have made the change to a grey lululemon metal vent tech instead of a green lululemon metal vent tech. What a big difference, eh?

Last night, I reached my minimum goal thanks to donations from Christian, Shay and Chantelle, Rachel and Asher and Marc-Andre! Thank you all!

Pretty tired now! Maybe one in the morning :D

Thank you to those of you who have been following along with my journey!

It's marathon season in Boston.....

Welcome to the Expo....

I have to admit the Boston marathon expo was pretty bleh yesterday. It was huge but full of merchandise that you could get anywhere else and probably at better prices. Picking up my bib was pretty exciting, although I have to admit it wasn't as satisfying as if I had qualified this year but there is a different sense of accomplishment running with Dana-Farber.

After wasting about an hour wandering around the expo, I headed over to DFMC check-in at the Marriott, where I got to see team coordinator Jan and expert Marathon adviser and former Boston Marathon winner, Jack Fultz. I also ran into a teammate from DFMC (who also works at DFCI) who I hadn't seen from the first-timer meeting in December and she seemed so nervous. I tried to get her to relax and reassure her that she was ready for Monday but she was visibly unsure of herself. I hope she has recovered some of confidence since then. 

The Stanley Cup playoffs have certainly been a great distraction from the upcoming race and Montreal's big overtime win helped the evening go quickly.

This morning was the BAA 5k, which I went to cheer a bunch of people I knew, and I have to admit I was in awe of how much traffic there was on the course from just 10,000 runners. Kind of daunting for Monday morning, when I will effectively be passing some 10-15000 runners.....

This morning also marked my final run before Monday, what I intended to be a short 2 mile/3.2 km run, which turned into the regular 4 mile/6.4km run at TMRICE saturday. I felt pretty good except for the phantom knee pain, so I'm ready for Monday.

My bib number is 26239, which is was originally unhappy with since it didn't seem like a cool number to me (ya this is something I think about) but I guess the 2 "2s" and the 3/6/9 makes some kind of mathematical coolness in there.....

Since then I have been in vegetation mode except for ironing on my name and some other names onto my DFMC singlet for Monday. That's pretty much the majority of the plan for the next 36 hours :-)

The weather has decided it isn't going to totally cooperate on Monday with rain highly likely. Honestly, I'd prefer snow since rain is my absolute least favourite condition to run in but I guess I'll have to make do with whatever is there.

One more update tomorrow probably. Sorry if it is boring :-) That's pretty much where I'm at right now!

Just 3 days to go! Wasn't it just December?

Brookline being a little too supportive ;-)

The city is definitely starting to show signs of the race approaching! Here is a cropped photo of the no stopping signs around Brookline. I am all for the support Brookline but telling the runners they can't stop....pretty ballsy ;-)

Everyone keeps asking me if I am excited and/or ready for the race, and the answer is.... I sure hope so because there is nothing I can do now to get ready for it.

I'm trying not to do anything special or unique these next few days and just go about my regular routine. I have 1 more run on the calendar to go, a short 2 ish mile leg loosener tomorrow morning. It will also be nice to have a Saturday morning hangout with the Saturday morning TMRICE gang which I haven't seen in a while.

I can't begin to explain how thankful I am for everyone who has donated so far either directly or through the March Madness pool to get me almost to $4000. It still seems insane to me that 4k is the minimum needed to raise for DFCI or that there are over 200 members of the DFCI team who have raised over 8k already. Thank you all so much for supporting me and keeping me honest!

Marathon expo today -- kinda wondering if it is worth all the hype - will keep all of you posted!

5 days to go - and everybody poops!

This guy has the right idea.....

Well maybe not...but not as unacceptable as you'd think

Last night was the last Track Tuesday before the race and I felt great. All rational thought said to take it easy. Andy and Jill kept screaming at me with every lap "DON'T DO ANYTHING STUPID" but I ran a solid workout, for 400m/800m/400m 3X. It's Andy's favourite and I like it a lot. People were finally back at track making it a much less lonely final workout before the marathon.

But this post isn't directly about running but instead it is about how important your gastrointestinal tract is come race day. Why today am I talking about this finally with the long await poop post? Well mostly because sometime between last night's workout and this morning, my GI tract decided to abandon ship. Let's hope it was some kind of food poisoning that is on its way out. Needless to say let's hope this doesn't happen again in the next few days leading up.

So many of you tuned in to my post with the photo of the runner who literally shat himself during a HALF-MARATHON and continued to run with shit in shorts and pasted on his skin. Amazingly, he went on to finish 21st in that race. When asked why he didn't stop, despite cramps from KM 2-12 and shitting himself, he said, "If you quit once, it's easy to do it again and again and again. It becomes a habit."

Some runners will stop at nothing in a marathon, as evidence by that photo but myself and the majority of runners try to take a more proactive approach in cleansing the system pre-race so that egregious and unfortunate accidents don't happen during the challenge we have worked so hard to train for. So as much as Shirley will be embarrassed by this post, making sure you flushed the pipes (not in the Something about Mary way.....) is probably the most critical thing come marathon morning. There is a reason every race has many, many port-potties right near the start - so you can make sure you get out every last nugget.

So what's my marathon day morning ritual? Without going into details, let's just say like it comes like all good things....because...you never want this sign to be right...

Hopefully not true....

or else...this could happen again....possibly to you! 

Friends don't let friends poop themselves.

Happy running!

7 days and the weather watch

My preferred 7 day forecast!

2014s Boston Marathon weather...This wouldn't be so bad for this year!

In just under 7 full days from this minute, wave 4 of the Boston Marathon will start. Nothing much to worry about for the next week unless you are injured, other than rest, eating well and of course, the weather come Marathon Monday.

The DFMC team thread is full of questions and speculation of what will the weather be. Even some out of town runners I know have messaged me asking me what to expect for the weather. Forecasts from many different sites, countries and even cities are being posted. What will the weather be in Hopkinton at the start, or Newton at mile 17, or Boston at mile 25? I have to admit that even though there is nothing we can do to control it, I am equally obsessed with this information. 

Currently my favourite and preferred weather forecast is courtesy of the Canadian weather network which shows a high of 11C/low of 6C with partly cloudy skies. That would be a dream. Weather.com on the other hand, has a decent but much less runner friendly forecast of the high 16C/low 11C. To a lot of you, you might wonder what the big deal is, if I can run 26.2 miles in -10 Celsius, surely I can do the same in +15 or +20. The reality is besides wanting to be able to run my best possible time, which would be easier in cooler conditions, everyone really just wants to pick out their race day attire so that they can check another box off the list, one less variable going into the weekend. Weather can also ruin 18 weeks of training in a flash. 3 years ago, the temperatures in Boston, peaked at 27-28 Celsius, prompting the Boston Athletic Association to recommend people skip the race, despite not cancelling it. Sure, I could run the marathon in those temperatures but it wouldn't be pleasant (as pleasant as running as a marathon is anyways). 

So as 30,000 runners focus on the weather for April 20th over the next 7 days, only tell them the good news if it is 12C/50F and partly cloudy, don't tell them the good news of a warm sunny day :-)

31 and counting.....

Notice the disproportionately large head....and the scary mustache.

If only :-)

No not 31 days left to the marathon but 31 years and counting alive! Time really does start to go faster as you get older. The years just tend to blur together. Needless to say it really doesn't bother me to be 31 except for the reality that life is a lot of work. Part me longs for the days when I was doing my PhD and things were much simpler :-)

I certainly don't "feel" 31 or whatever, 31 is supposed to feel like. Last night at track, the turnout was sparse again after the crushing winter and the gloomy, rainy/chilly weather we were having yesterday. Thankfully, Hudson made his return as promised in April. As customary, the first Tuesday of everything month we do the Shawgo mile (in honor of Ryan Shawgo....don't worry he isn't dead or anything). The workout is a fast with splits of 800m/1mile/1200m/800m/400m = 4809m.
Thank goodness Hudson showed up (no offense Jill) as he pushed me to actually make it into a workout. My mile was rather unimpressive at 5:39 but it was windy and chilly, so won't be too sad about it. I did manage to throw down a 74 second 400 meters, which is my fastest in a while. This marked my last "real" track workout before Boston, as next Tuesday's will certainly be on the lighter side.

Today has been a good day so far with lots of messages for my birthday, a few calls and even a photo or two to make me smile/laugh/cry. Mixed emotions about missing another birthday not at home with my family but such is life I suppose. Maybe next year!

Maybe tapering does suck....and Passover issues

How I felt all week.....

Good Tuesday everyone!

Another gloomy and chilly day here in Boston today, which certainly isn't helping with my dwindling motivation to train. As I mentioned in my last post, last' week was the beginning of the marathon taper, and while I was pretty excited overall, I had a pretty miserable week of running. The one bright spot last week was the return of OUTDOOR Track Tuesdays! The turnout was incredibly sparse because everyone probably though the track was still frozen over but for the first time in 10 weeks, the track was clear and ready to go.

Track Tuesday also proved to be my only decent workout of the week as I skipped Monday's run and Thursday's run I just felt like crap the whole time. Chris, Jill and I did Yasso 800s again (10 x 800m with a 400m recovery in between) and overall it went pretty well except for the gastric emergency during the 400m between interval 6 or 7. In the end, the average 800m time was 2:54, which would predict a 2 hour and 54 minute, something that I couldn't even dream about 2 years ago, let alone 1 year ago. It seems as though training through this winter has really paid off. I am certainly not aiming for that time though come Marathon Monday and really with a good weather day, all I want is a 2;59:59.

This weekend also brought a new challenge for the second to last week of training with the arrival of Passover. It also meant that Shirley and I got to go home to visit family and friends this weekend. While Friday had some gorgeous weather both here in Boston and in Montreal, Saturday, Montreal gave me a lovely welcome with a beautiful snow storm to add the impossibly bad weather I have had for every single training run. I managed only 12.2 of my planned 16 miles but I can't blame that entirely on the weather but mostly on the fact I didn't and couldn't take any Gu because of Passover. The snow did change my planned course, as I had initially hoped of doing a run up Mont-Royal, which I quickly changed to a much easier, flatter run through my local stomping ground. Overall though, I just didn't feel fresh most of the week and maybe it was some taper gnomes, as I felt possible injuries around every turn.  Hopefully this week will go better, although I already took Monday off because I was lazy.

13 days to go....Can it get here already? At least today is Track Tuesday again and the Shawgo mile!

Hopefully I'll have time to update on that, March Madness, and my birthday tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!