Ok, I’ve been putting this off a bit too long. I wanted to write a post mortem on boston just to get a few facts down. If I dont do that first, I wont be able to record anything that successively came after Boston because I’m too OCD. My trip to Kyiv has quite a bit worth blogging about for instance.
First off, I had a strep test after the race and it came back negative. On the one hand, it may just mean its inconclusive as to whether or not I had strep because I took a bunch of azithromycin beforehand. Yet, the possibility does exists that I didn’t have strep that day. I dont really know, and I dont think it matters from the perspective of the race. But, the more I think about it, the more I realize, with strep comes a fever and just an overall feeling of weakness I’m very familiar with. It’s unlikely I could PR with strep, much less get through 20 miles. That doesnt discount the fact I had something real going on that was painful however. I dont think swollen glands can be the result of something psychosomatic. Besides, imagined or not, I had real pain and swelling in my throat.
The Boston marathon is a PR course. You just need to run it right. Perhaps me being so conservative running Boston because of my fear of illness allowed me to cross the finish with the time I did. Perhaps ironic in a way. I dont know.
Boston is like a giant party. Everyone treats you like a rockstar and you need to experience it to understand why it’s so great. I think everyone should do it regardless of how you get there.
I think the qualifying times are an arbitrary standard and I have never disagreed with them more now than before. If you’ve ever done research as to why they were put in place, you would know they were done so as a way to eliminate the surplus of applicants that the race could not handle. Other marathons have better systems to accomplish this. Boston has (or had at one point) a false sense of belief that these time qualifications will weed out the less serious runners. These qualifying times became a standard people felt they need to hold themselves to.
Someone’s speed has little to do their passion. I don’t think someone who has talent is necessarily more deserving to run Boston than a slower individual who might be more dedicated. Raising money for charity to get into the race may be a fair way to measure dedication to the sport, but I think Boston needs to learn lessons from other marathons. New York’s 9+1 program is a perfect example of measuring one’s dedication, but locality of the participant gives an unfair advantage to those in the NY area. First come, first serve, or lottery is also fair IMHO.
I also want to record how I failed at Boston. One of my goals is to better manage the stress of these events (and life in general). When I think of the training, time, and money spent towards these events, I begin to place a lot of importance on the results. With so much invested, I better get a good result or so much is wasted. I think everyone who trains for events like this does the same, but for me, the importance becomes a source of stress and managing this stress has always been a challenge.
With this race, regardless of the reason, whether I really had an illness, or if it was in my head, staying up all night worrying about it was a failure for me. I need to learn how to better let go. In the end things worked out ok. Better than I could have ever imagined beforehand in fact. But, I believe for other reasons than due to how I coped with the curveball thrown at me.
With that said, Boston is done. I’m giving a lot of thought to what I want to be able to do in my running, and its more about being able to run far, hard, without much effort rather than getting PRs at races. Quite a different mindset to what I measured myself against before. But it’s really what I enjoy. I fell in love with running before I ever ran a race and before I knew what the initials PR stood for. Getting out there, feeling strong, and going as hard as I can over distance further than I have the patience to drive my car is what I really love doing.
I’ll still race. The Brooklyn half is next and I’ll attack it more out of curiosity. I still want to break 1:29:00. And, I’m trying to decide between the Hartford marathon and Philly for next fall. I still need a target to focus on, but now its going to be secondary to my training, rather than my training being a means to an end.
