Marathon Day

Hey Folks. Happy Thursday to all! This past Monday was Patriot's Day in the Boston area. This is certainly one of the coolest and most unique days on the Boston calender. The Red Sox play the only morning game on the baseball schedule while the Boston Marathon is run. Oh yeah, and something about the battle of Concord and Lexington and the Revolutionary War. Anyway, elite runners from all over the world flock to Hopkinton and run 26.2 miles into Boston. The race finishes a little more than a mile from Fenway Park (you can see the runners from the Green Monster seats.) I've been trying to get into Boston for many years to check out the race but have never had the chance...until Monday! My girlfriend and I made our way into Boston to check out the runners. We arrived at Kenmore Square at 11:30 which was about 15 minutes before the elite women came through...Perfect timing!! What amazed me was the difference in running form between the absolute best of the best runners and the rest. The top 10 runners were flawless, but outside the top 10 were a bunch of folks who I'm assuming won't be running for too much longer. I wanted to hand out my cards along the route because many will be in PT soon enough. It reminded me of the old running periodization: 1) Run, 2) get injured, 3) Run, 4) repeat. And those were still the elite runners. Then, after a couple hours, came the recreational runners. I'm not going to suggest these people should stop running but YIKES, most of these people were not remotely prepared for the pounding they were putting their bodies though. Here's the thing, as a coach, I watched these people and I saw a big sea of people who I can help. But to do that I might have to put myself through a training program with the goal of running a marathon WITHOUT destroying my body in the process. I'm not yet ready to commit to running the Boston Marathon but I'm seriously considering trying to qualify for the 2011 event. Qualifying will add a little more funness to the experiment. Qualifying time for the 2010 marathon was 3 hours, 15 minutes for my age group (I'm no longer in the youngest age group! I feel old!) That is a little better than 7:30 miles. That doesn't seem so daunting (or maybe it does.) Anyway, anyone want to join me? 2011 Boston Marathon? Anyone?

Oh, and here's a really good blog post about the dangers of recreational running.

And, if you haven't seen this play in college baseball a couple nights ago check this out!!