Helllloooo!
We are less than a week from the Boston Marathon and we (using the collective “we” to describe myself) are anxious. Wowweee!! The most important thing to know about running a marathon is that it hurts. There always come a point during the race—around mile 20 if you’re having a good day, earlier if you’re not—that your body, your mind, or both, decide that they’d like to opt out. This is when you are supposed to fight the noise and keep going, ideally at a pace faster than what you were running at mile three.
This will be my seventh marathon and I’ve probably given into the noise in the majority of races I’ve done. I hate being uncomfortable! But this time, we fricken’ got it. Maybe. We can do hard things! Blergh.
Here’s how I’m preparing these next few days.
Physically, this week is all about eating motherf*cking carbs. My diet is already quite high-carb so this doesn’t actually change much, but in this early phase I’m also focusing on adding fiber. I’ve done a few grossly healthy things to achieve this, like shred zucchini into my oatmeal pancakes (not bad if you add cinnamon) and chop cabbage into my guacamole (not sure if you can still call it guacamole in that case). On Saturday, I’ll reduce my fiber intake and start focusing on my two true loves: simple sugars and refined grains. I don’t feel like enough of an expert to speak to the why and how of eating carbs before a marathon, but this Runner’s World article does a good job. I’m also drinking a lot of electrolytes and no alcohol. Health is wealth.
Mentally, I’m organizing my toolkit for when the going gets rough. I’ve tried a lot of different things in the past. When I ran the Chicago Marathon in 2019, I assembled a list of 26 people that I moderately-to-severely disliked and dedicated each mile to rage running them into the ground. The more I disliked someone, the later in the race I would dedicate a mile to them. Lol…?
On a less menacing note, I also have a few stoic Kipchoge quotes that I repeat to myself, like “the limits we have are all in our brain.” And, best of all, I have my emergency music. I won’t listen to music for the majority of the race, but I keep a pocket-size MP3 player on my person with about 15 songs that will help me turn my brain off and keep moving. Bombs Over Baghdad by Outkast is one of them, Dancing On My Own by Robyn is another. There are also a few bangers from the Tarzan soundtrack. Whatever works!
Send song recs, stoic quotes, and other hot tips my way. And try a rage run for yourself.
Elaheh