Once I was seriously into my training for my first marathon, L.A. 2007, I really thought I wanted to do Boston. I was training along with my sister-in-law since we have a similar pace we thought we could qualify. Unfortunately, I hit the wall badly in my first two marathons and had a miserable time for the last 5 to 6 miles of both of those races and finish times that were much too slow. In large part I think this was due to going out much too fast in the first half of the race. As they say, it's very important to do the first half of the marathon slower than the second half.

So I came to my third marathon, L.A. 2008. I had been using the "Run Less, Run Faster" training program by Bill Pierce, Scott Murr and Ray Moss (note: Much of the program is available online for free here: http://www.furman.edu/first/fmtp.htm ).

I highly recommend this program, at least for older runners like myself. It recommends running 3 times per week, cross training (I did lots of swimming and some bike), and five 20-milers. I had originally picked this training program because it sounded like it could help me qualify for Boston and avoid injury (I'd had injury issues throughout my previous two years of running). But as the week of the race came, and I thought about my strategy for the race, one thought was foremost in my mind: "Why am I doing this if I am not enjoying it? What is the point?"

And I decided to just go out and enjoy the race, and I decided I did not care if I qualified for Boston or not. I decided my goal was to NOT HIT THE WALL. That would be my goal. To have a marathon, feel good for the entire thing, and feel good after the finish and enjoy the race. If I could do that, it would be a successful race and I would be satisfied.

I also knew that I had to find a way to slow down at the beginning of the race. I tend to go out too fast at the start of most of my races, but in a race as long as a marathon that is deadly. So I decided to take walk breaks at every water table at each mile. Because I had decided that qualifying for Boston was no longer my goal, but having a good race was, it was easy to convince myself to do this. A lot of this idea came from an article in Runner's World by Amby Burfoot which you can read at this link: http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-380-381-386-236-0,00.html

For my age group, qualifying time for Boston is 4 hours. A 9-minute pace is a 3:55 finish time. In my previous marathons I had often been running an 8:30 pace near the start of the race, and in some parts even faster, but this resulted in my barely being able to keep a 10 minute pace near the end of the race, and even having to walk for large parts near the end.

This time, for L.A. 2008, I ran between the tables at about an 8 minute to 8:30 pace, but walked for the water tables. And each mile my pace was dead-on 9 minutes. It felt good and was a nice easy overall pace for me, and slower than I had done in my previous marathons. Also I decided to enjoy the race experience. I tuned in to what was going on around me on the course and I even forgot to put my iPod on! I could not believe when I finished the race, that I had not even listened to my iPod at all. I didn't think of it and I didn't miss it. Anyhow, I was going along easily up through mile 16 at a nice run/walk and when I got to mile 18 I felt so good, I was able to increase my pace a little. I had heard this was the key. Keep to your slower pace, and *if* you feel good enough at mile 18, you can pick up the pace, but not before. When I made it to the club's support tent at mile 23 at 3:23, I knew I was going to break 4 hours, which was totally exciting. Those last 3 miles were still tough, but I made it in 3:51:44, which is an 8:50 pace.

And it turned out I achieved my goals for this race: I did not hit the wall. I enjoyed the race, I felt good throughout the race and after the finish.

I think when attempting to qualify for Boston, you need to be sure that is a realistic goal for yourself. Check out the race predictor charts, think about your usual running pace. For example, even though I run typically with the club's 9-minute pace group, our pace at the end, including water breaks and potty stops, is usually more like a 9:30 average pace. So when planning your race, you need to keep in mind that you're really running a 9:30 training pace, not a 9 minute one. I cannot recommend highly enough the "Run Less, Run Faster" training program mentioned earlier. It does have guidelines for qualifying for Boston and can help you decide if that is a realistic goal. I would also say it is more important to enjoy running and enjoy your races. If you set a goal for yourself and then cannot achieve it and are very discouraged and disappointed, is this what will make you happy? If you REALLY want to do Boston but can’t meet the goal time, the fund raising option is a perfectly valid way to get in.

Other aspects of my training, philosophy and life-style include: Eat lots of whole, fresh foods, especially lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. I very rarely eat fast food, or prepared foods, frozen dinners or anything that comes out of a box (um...not counting nutrition/sports bars). Drink lots of water every day. Oh, yeah, during the race I usually have 2 cups of water at each water stop and I eat 2 clif bloks every 4 or 5 miles up until about mile 20.

Let's see...get plenty of sleep. Listen to your body. Avoid injury at all costs. Better to skip workouts than do a workout and incur or aggravate an injury. Get the right running shoes. I recommend The Running Lab in Orange which is where I've been buying all my shoes since Oct. 2006. An Epsom salt bath after a long run can sure take away a lot of aches and pains, but do the ice bath first.

How to do an ice bath: Sit down in your empty tub and then fill it with the coldest water that comes out of your tap up to hip height. THEN add two bags of ice. I wear a sweatshirt, sip hot tea and read a magazine for 10 minutes while I sit in the ice. I actually haven't done one of these since March 2008, but I used to do them regularly after 18 and 20 mile runs and then an Epsom Salt Bath.

Also, consider chiropractic for helping with injuries. I got a lot of good help from Dr. Keith at Amar Chiropractic in Covina.

STRETCH. Stretching and warming up and cooling down is very important. Always stretch after your runs. This can help to prevent injury. Overall, do what makes you happy. I personally don't see how I could run distances over 15 or 16 miles if I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. I also have to do a lot of my long runs by myself since I work every other weekend and have to miss a lot of the Saturday group runs. Running is part of my personal time to just sift through my thoughts or go into an empty space away from the hectic daily routine, and also a good time to listen to music on my iPod.

Happy running and enjoy your race!

Sheila King

Qualifying for Boston

I ran four marathons before qualifying for Boston. Like all who run I would day dream of BQing (Boston Qualifying) a race, the closest I had come was 11 minutes…11 minutes in a marathon is an eternity!! I wanted to run because I loved it, actually I have a love/hate relationship with running, but for the most part I love it… with each marathon I ran, I began to really love the distance no matter how long it took me to cover it. With that in mind I sort of put qualifying on the back burner…it still lived in my day dreams but it was not the reason I was running.

I wanted to run the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco, the only way to guarantee a bib number is to join the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training and raise funds for leukemia. So sign me up for possibly the hilliest marathon around!! I raised over $3000 and trained for 18 weeks with Team in Training. I ran 5 days a week.  Knowing that the hills of San Francisco were going to kick my butt, I ran every hill I could find. One day a week was dedicated to the long run with the Team, another day was speed work and the rest were all about logging midweek miles.

On my rest days I would roll around my living room on the stability ball working on my core. Early in my training I developed a wicked case of shin splints, I went to a sports medicine doctor (I was worried about a stress fracture), he prescribed 2 weeks in the pool aqua jogging and absolutely no road running.  I spent as much time in the pool as I would have on the road. It worked like a charm, my shins recovered and I was able to pick right up where I left off in my training. I had switched from my beloved New Balance to a pair of Brooks that wore out in just over 100 miles…The worn out shoes played a major role in my shin splint injury.

The fact that I had raised money for Team in Training held me accountable to the people who donated and sponsored me. Each week I would send them an update on my training along with a running total of the miles I had trained. I also had my “mile money”, I paid myself $1 for every mile I trained, and this was going to be my spending money in San Francisco…In the end I trained over 640 miles, that was $640 of carefree money to spend in the big city!!

 I Carbo loaded the week of the race, my big carb day being two days before race day(the year before I had a bad G.I. race at the PF Changs Rock-n-Roll Marathon in Phoenix that I did not want to repeat and eating my big dinner two days out just works better for me). I usually find out what drink the race will be serving and train with that as well as my favorite flavor of gels.

On race day my trusty Garmin kept me from going out too fast, I knew I had a lot of hills ahead of me and I didn't’t want to burn out before having to climb them…The Boston qualifying time for my age group was 4 hours, I had set a goal of 4:15 (the thought of all those hills freaked me out!) I ran pretty steady, I was having a good day, I had a lot of good tunes on my I-pod and I was just happy to be there…At about mile 20 I realized that if I could keep my pace I could possibly qualify…OMG! I crossed the finish line in 3:56:51…Yippee!!! I was sure the clocks were wrong! Three months later I ran another Boston qualifying time at the PF Changs Rock-n-Roll Marathon in Phoenix (3:58:41)…I am Boston bound in 2010

Robyn Roybal

Qualifying for Boston

I’m Stan LeMelle.  Since I am 55 years old, my qualifying time for Boston is 3 hours, 45 minutes.   I was able to qualify in my last two marathons: 

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Long Beach (October 2008): 3:34:26

      Phoenix (January 2009), 3:33:25

My 1^st Marathon was Los Angeles in 2004.  I was 50 years old then and I didn’t understand what training was necessary to successfully run a marathon.  I define a successful marathon as one where you feel pretty good physically after you’re done.  By that standard I wasn’t prepared and it was not a success.  I finished in 4 hours and 35 minutes.   I recall making a promise that I would never put myself through such a horrendous experience again.  To make sure that I was done with this crazy idea, I stopped on the way home to buy a pack of cigarettes and a few Big Macs (I quit smoking again a few months later).  I continued running but much shorter distances.    

In the spring of 2006, I began running casually with Dave Janosky who is also a member of our club.  Dave didn’t have any running experience but he had a lot of enthusiasm.  We talked a lot about running and I found his energy to be contagious.  He got me fired me up about running.   I’m not sure which one of us talked the other into running the Fontana half-marathon in June, 2006, but we did it.  We had such a great time that it seemed natural to set a goal of running the 2007 L.A. Marathon. 

In July 2006, Dave and I joined the Loma Linda Lopers and ran with their 10 minute pace group.  We became friends with a diverse group of people who were mostly first time marathoners.  I got hooked on the idea of running with a group of high-energy, positive minded people who can motivate me up when I don’t feel like training.   In my second L.A. marathon (2007), I improved my time to 4 hours, 24 minutes.

Later in 2007, I joined the Pacers where I met many of the founders of I.E. Running Club.  As my running continued to improve, I set a goal of completing a marathon in less than four hours.  I accomplished that in Phoenix (January 2008) with a time of 3 hours and 57 minutes.  However, my next marathon (L.A. in 2008) was only two months later and my body obviously had not recovered.  I felt intense muscle spasms in my quads.  I was running with Jeannie Morley who helped me out by karate chopping my legs to loosen them up.  I “survived” that marathon with a much slower time of 4 hours, 37 minutes.   

In May of 2008, my wife and I joined Jenny Craig to lose weight.  This is not a plug for Jenny Craig because my wife says it didn’t work for her.  But I lost about 20 pounds.  I mention this because after that weight loss, my training felt so much easier.   I was able to run faster and further with much less discomfort.

As my training improved, I began to think that qualifying for Boston was a real possibility.  My qualifying time was 3:45, which meant that my average time per mile had to be about 8 minutes and 40 seconds.  I set this goal for the Long Beach Marathon in October.  Sometimes in life it seems like everything just seems to go right.   That morning, I felt so great.  I had a positive attitude that, regardless of what happened in terms of time, I was going to enjoy the race, run hard and have no regrets.  I felt like I had an entire support team to help me out (you know like the elite runners have).  I drove to the run with Frank Urrea, a friend from the Lopers Running Club, and Dave Janosky.  Frank signed up to run the half-marathon for the sole purpose of pacing me (both races start together and share the courses for the 1^st 10 miles).   He was like my wingman, he stayed a half-step behind me for those ten miles and his constant presence made it so much easier to maintain my pace.   At 12 miles into the run, I began to pace off a friendly woman until about mile 18 when she found a secret reservoir of energy and picked up the pace.  Dave was not running this race due to an injury but he said he would be waiting at the mile 22 marker to pace me into the finish.   True to his word, Dave was there and stayed with me (an unregistered bandit runner) until the finish line was in sight.   After crossing the finish and seeing that I had indeed qualified, I found my two friends.  I felt overwhelmed with gratitude to them for being such good friends, for my family for not complaining too much about all the training and to God for giving me the ability to run without pain at my age.  Only my fellow runners can understand the emotion that wells up at the end of the race when you have given it your all and you achieved your goal.  

In Phoenix, in January 2009, I had a new goal of 3 hours and 30 minutes.  In the first few miles, I saw the logo of the I.E. Running Club on the back of a runner’s shirt and I pulled up alongside him.  This runner turned out to be Guy Favatella and we ran side-by-side for nearly 20 miles.   We learned we had mutual friends in the Pacers and the I.E.  Running Club.  Most of the time we didn’t talk, we simply ran together silently.  I love running with others.  Although you are running together [which makes it easier since you share the pain) but you are also totally alone with your thoughts, fears, doubts, joy, and goals. 

Somewhere about mile 22 or 23, I couldn’t keep the pace we had been doing (about 8 minute miles).  I fell back and grew agitated as I watched my pace decline in the last miles without being able to find any more energy.  In spite of my disappointment in not making my goal time, I have great memories of this race.  After crossing the finish line, I promised Guy I would show up the following Saturday at the I.E. Running Club.  I joined the club that Saturday.

Qualifying for Boston is a worthy goal.  I hope each of you who has this goal is able to achieve it.  It’s important to enjoy the journey to your goal.   Appreciating the friendships, the shared pain, the joy and the milestones is just as important at the goal.

 Stan LeMelle