1 Week Until The Boston Marathon!

Next Monday April 16th I'll be running the Boston Marathon!

Training

My training has gone pretty well, and I'm very excited about the upcoming challenge of another marathon. My training goals this time were more long runs (8 over 30 km), more tempo runs at lactate threshold pace (10 at ~4 min/km), higher volume in general, and more up and downhill training (since Boston has a lot of downhill).

The other difference this year was I've done a lot more races than normal. I did 5 Island Race series, including a great PR at Bazan Bay 5K in 17:20. The other 4 races I took a little bit easy to not affect my training as much.

Weather

So far the weather is looking to be rather hot, with highs in the low 20's on race day. That does make hydration more difficult, but I'm hoping that my last year's BQ marathon the North Olympic Discovery Marathon which was also in the low 20's will be a helpful experience. Definitely wearing sunscreen this time...

Boston Marathon Tips:

In my research about the marathon I've come across a lot of useful resources, especially for first timers:

• Did You PR At Boston?
• 1 day to go to Boston
• Boston Marathon Info for Newbies
• Boston Marathon Race Execution

Boston Marathon Elevation

The elevation profile is something that makes Boston different from many other marathons. It is a net elevation loss (meaning more down than uphill) of about 450 feet (140 m). But this definitely doesn't make it any easier, most people will tell you that all the downhill is what makes this a difficult marathon - it really beats up your quads early on in the race and makes it very tough during the final 10 km.

Simple:

Detailed:

Over the first 7 km (4+ miles) the elevation drops about 100 meters (from 150 down to about 50 meters)! After that the elevation doesn't change significantly (undulating) until just before the 25 km mark (15.5 miles) where there is a steep downhill of about 30 meters over 0.6 km. This is the start of the Newton Hills - a series of 4 hills ending in Heartbreak Hill. The first Newton hill is about 1 km long, and 25 m elevation. The second hill is shorter - maybe 0.4 km long and also 25 m up. The third hill is about 0.6 km long and 20 m up. And finally Heartbreak Hill is about 0.7 km long and 28 meters up. After each of the 4 hills there is a downhill section, so that should help with the recovery. Definitely don't want to lose too much time on the uphills! After Heartbreak Hill it is almost all downhill to the finish (minus a few overpasses/underpasses) - about 60 meters down.

Funnies

I also came across some funny signs that people have seen during marathons, from this forum:

• Harden/Hurry The F Up!
• A sign that said "Your wife just called....", then another guy about 10 feet further down the road with a sign saying "She said run faster".
• 
  Sure seemed like a good idea 4 months ago...

Here are the post-race blog posts - pre-race and race details.