Athlete Alert

EventInformation:
Event:	2011 Boston Marathon
Runner:	Kristin Timm
Latest Results:
Location Time Pace/mile 10km 1:00:30 9:44

All times are unofficial. Times may vary in post race official results.

And so it begins.

Here I am leaving for the buses...I added fleece pants which will stay on till I drop my bag. These jackets aren't going anywhere fast, either. It is a lovely day but the wind is still bone chilling. I am currently in the Athlete's Village in my second trip through the porta potty line. When I finish that it will be time to leave for the corrals.

Blog errors

I am quite frustrated (again) because I wrote a long post (again) which failed to publish (again). I am just mentioning it to make clear that all is well, I just don't have the energy to start again. If I manage to somehow solve the problem, I may post it later (and out of sequence).

Only one more morning where I can get up and not run a marathon! (I borrowed that from the unpublished post.)

Here we are in Manchester

New Hampshire, after a long travel day. I was packing and getting ready to leave until 10-11 last night, then woke up at 2:30amto begin the travel process. I also wrote a post last night about my 6.5 miles yesterday morning, with 5x400 and a mile at GMP. I have not been able to get that to post successfully and I've pretty much given up. It's old news now.

Anyhow, I was supposed to pick up my parents at 3:30 for the trip to the airport. I was about ten minutes late and after a little comedy of errors in the driveway we were enough behind that I just dropped them at the airport to check in for their 6:15 flight and went to park the car. My flight didn't leave until 7:30.

With my transfer in D.C. and the time change, I didn't reach Manchester until about 7. It was just a quick shuttle to the hotel (we pick up a car tomorrow). I had instructed my parents to order pizza for dinner and it was waiting when I arrived.

Even though it's only 6:00 at home, I am pretty beat. I guess that's good so I'll be able to wake up early in the morning. Even though this isn't the most interesting location, I want to go for a run (no more than an hour) before breakfast and departure.

Boston is getting closer and closer...both in time and distance!

The Goals Post

I apologize if this all one long paragraph...lately blogger has been dropping the paragraph breaks and turning my multiple paragraphs into one. It bugs me but I don't know how to fix it! When this posts on Thursday I will be on my way to Boston, only four days from the marathon. I have thought off and on what my goals for this race would be. I cannot say that I don't have any goals, because I do, but I am certainly not so wedded to my expectations that I would be crushed if I failed to meet them. (Insert paragraph break here. Okay, I'm not going to say that again, but I almost feel like I should stick some sort of dingbat in to signify breaks!) *** My primary goal for Boston is to have a fun, fulfilling run. Everyone says that, don't they? But it's true. Certainly having a good experience is more important than any objective time goal. *** However. One does like to have goals, something to reach for. My baseline time goal is to finish under 4:30. Even when I was in my slump, I believed that was achievable. My Seattle Marathon time was 4:38, and that was a hard course and I was in a slower period in my running late last fall. With the gains I have made this spring, I believe that 4:30 is easily within my reach. *** As far as more challenging goals, I have thought a lot about this and done a number of tests and calculations. They all lead to the conclusion that 4:15 is a doable result. Here is why. *** In the last month I have given myself three major test to determine my marathon readiness and likely pace. Those were the Birch Bay 30K, the final set of ten Yasso 800s, and the Whidbey Half Marathon this last weekend. A couple of other runs have also played into this, although they weren't intended to: the 5K I did on April 2 and the 16-mile long run I did on April 3. I don't think I wrote a separate post about the 16-miler, but my average pace for that (run "easy") was 9:55, and it included two miles of uphill. *** A 4:15 marathon requires an average pace of 9:44 per mile. A 4:20 marathon requires 9:55, and 4:10 requires 9:32. *** My average pace for Birch Bay was 9:24, which would be under a 4:10. However, Birch Bay is arguably an easier course than Boston, and it is almost seven miles shorter, of course. My two hour half marathon this weekend can be used to predict a marathon finish between 4:05 and 4:15, depending on what pace calculator you use. And finally, the Yasso 800s, with all but one under 4:00, might indicate an ability to do close to a four hour time, if you buy into the Yasso myth. I also put my half marathon time into various pace calculators, and the prediction was for 4:13-4:15. There is also a rule of thumb to double your half time and add five minutes (that would give me 4:05). *** On the one hand, I think the pace calculators that use my half marathon time do not take into consideration that I was running Whidbey at what I felt was a reasonable marathon effort pace. If I had been running for my "best" half marathon, I would have run harder and hopefully had a faster time. So hopefully those predictions would be on the high end. On the other hand, I think the Yassos and the "double your half and add 5" methods underestimate the fatigue and breakdown that the marathon distance can lead to. Especially with hills at the end. *** So the conclusion remains unchanged; 4:15 is the time to beat. I think it is possible that I could do better; it's also possible I could do worse. Either way, I will be happy to have had the opportunity to run Boston. *** One other thing. With the change in qualifying times and entry procedure, I am quite sure I will never run Boston again after this. Instead of being discouraging, this realization really takes the glister off of beating four hours. Yes, it's a nice benchmark to beat, regardless of your age or whether it would be a qualifying time. It is quite possible that I will want to beat four hours again at some point (now would be great too!). But it no longer has a mythic aura. It's a nice number, but 4:05, 4:10, 4:15 are perfectly fine numbers. (3:55 is good too!) And I am pretty sure that one of those numbers I have just written will reflect my time on Monday, April 18.

Boston Marathon Tracking

I hope this will not be horribly irritating (if it even works), but I have signed up to get my splits sent directly to the blog. Interesting experiment, at least! My bib number is 20504.

Sent from my iPhone

A few things I forgot

This is me after the race (back at the hotel). I meant to put it at the end of the first post to show the contrast. Obviously the hat is back on my head now which is NOT an accurate reflection of how I looked in the race. I would have liked to take a picture of my wild hair but the first time I saw it in the mirror was when I was about to go in the shower...and this not that kind of blog. :)

Did I mention that this race was the final leg in the trifecta of tests I set up to determine my readiness for Boston? I. Am. Ready. More on that in an upcoming Boston Goals post.

Finally, yesterday on the drive up to Oak Harbor I felt a real twinge of excitement for Boston. It's not that I have not been excited already, on many different levels (getting through the registration mess was big!). But this was different, more visceral, a preview of the endorphin thrill of running the race and crossing the finish line. Just for a moment, I was there already.