Mike's Marathon Blog

I know I have been slacking on the blog posts. I have 2 reasons. 1 – it’s summer and I’m pretty much booked solid until Labor Day and 2 – our laptop broke, so I have to actually sit down at our desktop to go on the computer. I feel like both reasons are legitimate.

I have a few posts that I’m behind on and I will do them this week/weekend. These posts include my summer exercise schedule, my birthday, Memorial Day weekend and (this goes way back) the day before the Boston Marathon. I really just want to post a few pictures from the events listed above, but that takes time and I don’t seem to have much of it lately. I guess that is a good thing.

I’ll start with this past weekend. Well, half of Memorial Day weekend. Yesterday needs a whole post itself and you will see why. To any new runners out there, here’s Rule #1 – never ever sign up for a race without checking the date beforehand. Don’t just check your calendar or assume you aren’t doing anything. For instance, you could check your calendar, see that May 30th is free and think, ‘sure I’ll run a half marathon that day.’ But what you didn’t notice is that May 30th is the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and that you probably will have plans when May rolls around! Yes, I signed up to run a half marathon way back in March and didn’t realize that it was Memorial Day weekend.

The wost part of the race is that you have to pick up your number on Saturday. So not only am I spending half a day on Sunday in Boston, but I’m spending half of Saturday as well. Luckily 2 of our friends live in Southie and let us crash at their place. One of them was running the race with us, so she needed others to sulk with, as she also did not follow Running Rule #1. We had a nice little dinner on their roof deck, followed by giant brownie sundaes. Wait, that’s not what you eat before you run 13.1 miles?

As unfocused as I was for the race, I unfortunately set a goal for myself and I really wanted to follow through with it. I never set goals in any of my races. I’m a beginner runner and I really just want to enjoy the races and finish. This was my first race that I actually set a goal for myself. My goal: to break 2 hours. I have never run a half in under 2:15. I ran this same race last year in 2:22. I was sick, but still, that was my official time. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to shave off 22 minutes in 13 miles, but I figured I’d give it a shot.

I felt good on Sunday morning and I knew if I was gonna break 2, this would be the day. The course is flat as can be. It starts at the Seaport World Trade Center, goes through Government Center, up Memorial Drive to Harvard, back down Memorial Drive, around Boston Common and finishes back at the WTC. The first few miles flew by. I checked my watch at every mile and was always right on pace. Around mile 7, I was a few minutes behind. At that point, I thought for sure the last 1/10 of a mile would put me over 2 hours. The game face kicked in as soon as I got back in the city. I did not want to run 13 miles for nothing. I was coming out of this race with a personal record, no matter what!

Once I reached the 12-mile marker, I knew I did it. Not that I bagged the last mile, but I finally ran with some ease. I finished at 1:56:24, an 8:53 pace. It’s the happiest I’ve ever been at a finish line. I was pretty proud of myself.

And mine wasn’t the only PR broken that day! Jacky beat her ’09 time by 10 minutes and my sister finished her very first half marathon! We are like a family of runners! Maybe we should go on tour? Nike…..a little sponsorship perhaps?

Jack, Miriam and I did not just coincidentally wear the same exact yellow shirts that day. Eastern Standard sponsored a group of us last year and we raised money for a charity called Haley’s Heroes, which Jacky is on the board of directors. We decided to wear the shirts for this year’s race as well.

Congrats Katie and Jacky!