Columbus Half Marathon and Registering for Boston Marathon

Columbus Marathon Sunday, October 17th


Last Saturday afternoon my husband and I headed down to Columbus, picked up my 19 year old son Matt who attends The Ohio State University.  We went to the race expo, which was pretty lame.  Although after going to the Boston marathon race expo twice, I think any other race expo is going to be pretty weak.

We had our fill of some pasta, and settled into our hotel to watch the Buckeyes get killed by Wisconsin.

We all had pretty big goals for the next day.  My husband was trying to go for a sub-3 hour marathon for the second year in a row.  This year he had his sights on going 2:57.

My son and I were doing the half.  Matt had set his goal at 1:20.  With a pretty busy quarter and a sore ankle for the last two weeks, he wasn't sure how the day would go.  I have a half marathon pr of 1:53.?? that was set quite a few years ago.  I was hoping to go sub 1:50.  I had spent the last 8 weeks or so doing cross fit strength workouts, and cf endurance running workouts that call for lots of speed and not a ton of miles.  So I was totally unsure of what the day would bring.  I knew I was more comfortable running faster.  But I felt like the last three miles were going to be a question mark.

At the start I lined up with the 3:40 marathon pace group (a 1:50 half time) and vowed to stay with them until I felt like they were going to make me 'blow up' out there.  This worked for about 7 miles.  Our pace setter was well ahead of the 8:25 per mile pace necessary.  We were throwing out quite a few 8:10 or so miles.  Around 7-8 I felt like I needed to back off a little.  If I stayed at about 8:30 for the rest of the race, I knew I would meet my goal.

The day was beautiful.  Sunny, about 50 degrees.  This is a big race.  10,000 in the half marathon and 5,000 in the full marathon.  They all start together and then the half runners, just turn off at about 13 miles for the final stretch.  LOTS of crowd support, flat.  All in all, a great race.  I have run the marathon there the last two years.  I was always jealous of the people that got to turn off at 13, so this year it was nice to know I was the one.

With 5K left, I knew I was going to be very close to my 1:50 goal.  I felt pretty spent by then, but tried to push the pace as much as I could.  Crossing the line with a 1:50:30.   This is about a three minute pr for me, and so I am very happy with that.  Officially it is 8:27 miles.  But on my Garmin it is over 13.1 miles, of course, and so it had me at 8:25 miles.

My smokin' fast boys had an amazing day!!!

John ran a 2:57.32 marathon.  Finishing 98th out of the 5,000 runners and 9th in his AG.
Matt ran a 1:20:01 half finishing 58th out of the 10,000 runners and 2nd in his AG.

I am always amazed at how fast they can run.  All three of us are pretty well recovered.  I actually felt great,even the rest of the day.  Matt was more nauseous than he has ever been, but he has not run that distance much at all.  He is an Oly distance triathlete.  John had some trouble with stairs for  a few days, but is on the mend.

I have taken this week as a total rest week.  I am looking forward to getting out for a 5-6 mile run tomorrow morning, and then back into it next week.

My plans until January are 3 GOOD sessions on the bike trainer (interval training) with a specific workout planned for each day.  and 3 GOOD sessions of running per week (one distance, one speed)

I start coaching high school swimming in two weeks.  I will get in the pool sporadically during the season and it will be really hard trying to fit everything in...but I will!!

Boston Registration:

John and I have been planning on registering for months.  We have our hotel.  We had the 18th on the calender to remind us to register.  Starting at 9am, John spent hours at work on and off trying to register us.  The computer kept throwing him out.  About noon he finally got in.  He registered ME.  Thinking he would get in again soon.  He was never able to get in again.  He got CLOSED OUT!!  What the heck!

I am in, John is not!  and I am not happy about this.

When he told me that evening I was heartbroken.  The whole fun is that we are in it together.  I will be at Athlete's Village that morning without him :(

He seems to be fine with it.  He will find another marathon to train for, and be my support crew for Boston.  But I am still BUMMED!!