I DID IT!

Yes that is right I did it......I qualified for Boston!!! I am so excited!

Last Sunday was the National Capital Race Weekend in Ottawa and they had so many people running many different distances from 2km all the way up to 42.2km. I had a good weekend leading up to Sunday, I had an early pasta lunch for the carbs and then an early meat and potato dinner for the protein. I went to bed early to be sure I got a good night's sleep and sleep I did, I don't think I've ever slept so well in a long time. I had all my gear ready to go so I wouldn't forget anything.

Sunday morning I got up early and made myself some oatmeal with egg whites for some extra protein, got dressed and headed out the door by 5:50am for a 7 o'clock race start. I met up with a lot of the people from my running group and got together in the coloured corral system. I was not feeling nervous at all before the race started which is so not like me as I usually get butterflies when I go out for our LSD. I was very calm and ready for the day to start. The gun went off and we all started it was already pretty warm when we took off which I didn't notice until later.

I felt so good during the first half, it was so nice to see so many other "crazy" people up at that time of day just to cheer us other "crazy" people on, it gave me a high and allowed me to keep going. The second half was more difficult for many reasons; 1 I was already tired from running half of it; 2 the sun was getting hotter and there was less shade to hide from it; 3 the wind was always coming at me. It seemed there were more hills in the second half or it could have just been my brain going a little coo-coo. I didn't notice any discomfort until around the 25km mark, which is pretty good for me and I will have to thank it on all the ART I had done leading up to the race. After the last water station was where I was having a lot of trouble keeping focused and keeping on my pace. The crowds nearing the finish line were tremendous and I tried to feed off of them, at about 700m left to go was where I started feeling a little faint so I took some more water and pushed it right to the end knowing that at that point I had about 4 minutes to get to the finish line to qualify. Passing that finish line was overwhelming and I literally had nothing left in me, I had to waddle over to get some water, a foil blanket and of course.....my medal! Which will be engraved soon.

I waited for some of my friends to come through the finishing chute to see how they did and felt, after I found a few of them we went through for some post race food (not a good idea for me) and then we were off to find our families.

Here are my stats and split times:

Placed 770/3577 overall; 113/1343 females; placed 30/224 females 30-34 years

10k split 51:19; 21.1k split 1:47:31; 30k split 2:33:57

Chip time 3:39:44; Gun time 3:40:46

By the way did I tell you I qualified for Boston?

NYC Marathon

Well today I got the email from the NYRR and once I saw that word "Unfortunately" I knew it was not the year for me. I know of a few other people who did get accepted though.

Now I have to figure out which other race I should do instead. There is the Fall Colours in Cumberland, the Army Half or even the Toronto Waterfront again. Who knows, all I know is that I will finish this Marathon first and see what happens. Maybe my next race will be Boston.

Here's to hoping.

I am now done with all my long runs, my hills and my speed work all I have left is running a few more days at race pace. Now if I could only figure out what my race pace is. I have a few ideas but I am not completly sure and I probably won't know exactly until the gun goes off on race day.

My first option is taking it really easy and enjoy the day, but I know, and those that know me know that that won't happen as I am way too competitive for that.
My next option is trying to beat my last marathon time of 3:57:41 and hoping to finish with a 3:50:00 time this year (probably my best option).
And finally my last and most desired option is going all out and attempting to qualify for Boston with a finish time of 3:40:00

I will try out some different things on my next 3 runs at RP like maybe starting out slower for the first little bit and gradually increasing my speed as I go along. I know that I will run with walk breaks but I am not too sure if I will do that every 10 mins or every 15 mins.

As long as I sleep well the night before and eat well I should be good. Plus I also know there are a lot of people out there hoping for me to do my best and supporting me in anyway possible.

I have just finished my last LSD run of 32km, it was a nice route organized by the Running Room where we all got together at the Kanata store and made our way to the Bank St. one. They had some water stations along the way and opened some places for bathroom breaks if it was needed. We were also entered in for some door prizes although no one I knew won any of them. I met up with all the guys from my group at Bank St and took a bus out to Kanata to get started, there were so many people it almost felt like it was a race so it made it hard to keep my group on our slow pace for the run, I did have to yell at them a few times, but in a nice way ;) I think the hardest part of the run was coming up from the Ottawa River beside the locks and Parliament Hill, it was a very big and steep hill and it was near the end so we were already very tired to begin with. I finished the run feeling good and enjoyed some nice snacks and Gatorade inside the store at the end. Then a few of us from our group went out for a nice brunch and most importantly COFFEE!

I now have 3 weeks left before the race and I can now taper down to more reasonable distances plus a couple of runs done at my race pace (I'm still not too sure what it will be yet). My only problem is that Ultimate starts the weekend before the race and it will be hard for me to not play but I do have to remember the investment I have put into this race and how badly I want to go to Boston.