24115

With 21 days left I have received the first tangible evidence that I will be running in this year's Boston Marathon.  I got my official number.  It is 24115 and I am part of wave three.  This means that the BAA doesn't want me to get  in the way of the people that can actually run.  I will be sharing a ride into Hopkinton with two of those people.  Jonathan Steeves is a friend of mine and he will be running in his first Boston Marathon.  He is no stranger to marathons, though, as he qualified for Boston this year with the jaw dropping time of 3:10 and that wins him a spot in wave one.  To give you some perspective on this, when he finishes the marathon this year I will still have at least another 2 HOURS to go.

The second person I am riding to the start with is the lovely Katie O'Connel who is running in her fourth Boston Marathon.  She also qualified for this years marathon and she will be heading out in wave two.  Of all of the real runners that I know Katie is always the one that makes me feel good about the training that I am doing and she makes me feel like I am doing all the right things to prepare for the race even though I really am just winging it. 

I really have no idea what I am doing when it comes to training for a marathon.  Sure I go online and look up what I should be doing or I will ask people that I know for some pointers but what I find is either information for people who are, apparently, going to be running either at a pace that only Kenyans can hit or are running their third marathon this week or, more often I find a hundred websites that all offer tips on how to train.  The problem is that if I find a website that says you should stretch before a workout invariably the next website that I find will say you shouldn't.  You see for every tip one website gives there is always another that says you should do the opposite.  I have no idea what to believe because there have been some tips that I have seen that promise dire consequences if you do one thing or another or if you don't do one thing or another.  I read somewhere that if you drink Gatorade at the begining of a race you should NOT drink water at anytime during the race because it would dilute the Gatorade and negate its benefits.  So I shouldn't drink water during a 26 mile race?  You sure about that??

I guess the point is that I could spend every waking moment of my life reading about how to train for a the marathon or I could just run.  So I think that my intensive training program will include some running and then maybe I will drink something but you can bet that it ain't gonna be water because that would just be foolish.

Til next time...