The Day I Ran Boston and Discovered that Racing is Not the Same as Running Fast

Today is the 117th running of the Boston Marathon. In addition to wishing fleet feet to my friends running today's race, my thoughts turn back to Monday, April 19, 2010, the day I ran Boston.  

I had a blissful first marathon in Portland, Maine in October, 2009. The day I ran Portland, I had called myself a runner for less than a year, had trained well, and was amazingly blissful for the entire 26.2 miles, finishing strong and happy and about 20 minutes faster than my fantasy goal time. I was hooked.  

During the car ride from Maine back to Brooklyn, it suddenly dawned on me that I might just have qualified to run the Boston Marathon. A quick internet search revealed that, as a 45 year old woman, I needed a 4:00 marathon to qualify. My finishing time was 3:38.

The months leading up to the spring 2010 Boston Marathon were full of excitement, speed training, overuse injuries, physical therapy, and indecision. In the end, I decided to run the historic race, a decision that to this day I am so glad I made.

Today I find myself remembering back to that April morning. I boarded the hotel shuttle, leaving my family and friends behind at the hotel. Excitement on the shuttle and at the race start was palpable. We had all made it to Boston!

After that the story is probably pretty typical for novice racers. The sunshine and the excitement and my own desire to have an even better race than Portland took me out too fast. Several times along the course I questioned why I was there and contemplated what it would be like to just stop and lie down on the grass in the sunshine. But finish I did, aided by encouraging hugs from my family at Mile 20 and Miriam Makeba's Pata Pata on my quickly assembled ipod just before the final stretch. With all that struggle, I still pulled off a 3:40 finish, a time that should have made me happy indeed.

However, for months after Boston I experienced a desire to stop mid-race in nearly every race I ran. Sometimes I did stop, for just a moment, to give myself the pep talk I needed to finish. With lots of work and lots of talkings-to, the intensity and frequency of that particular race issue subsided. But it has never entirely vanished. Sometimes, mid-race, I just want to stop running.

I have spoken with lots of running friends about this, read books, and have received great advice. A triathlete friend from my college days suggested I focus on the pain and ask myself that, if this was how I felt all of the time, could I do it? My coach at the time of my Boston run told me that a marathon is a difficult distance and that anytime I finish one, I should feel proud and grateful. My team's new coach recently told me to consider, when the running gets tough, each part of my body. To examine why it is suddenly difficult and to make the decision about whether or not it is really too difficult to continue.

I have also invented a couple of my own mental imaging exercises. If voices start telling me to stop, I ask myself how I want to finish this. How I want to see myself and how I want to be seen in the world. I also remind myself that I can endure pretty much anything for the seven or so minutes that I probably have left in the race.

When I really consider my body as it races hard, I realize it is not my body that wants to stop. Sure my legs are working, my breathing is labored, my heart is exerting more than normal. But is any of this so painful that I genuinely need to stop?  Or can my calm assessment of my body serve to reassure my taxed body parts that they can get through it?

I needed to achieve a certain level of fitness to even be having this conversation. But once there, running and racing, at least for me, is 95% mental. And for me, this almost never comes into the picture when I'm training, only when I'm racing and heap on myself the added pressure of wanting to do well, finish strong, and place in the top of my age group.


Someday I will run Boston again. I have qualified with every other marathon I have run, but I have chosen not to run Boston until I have matured as a racer because I want the next time to find the kind of bliss I felt in Portland. Or at least, if I don't find bliss, to have perspective and to be grateful to have run it well.