Breaking Barriers Blog

Enjoying the wine country after the race.

Have you ever set a goal for yourself that if you met it, then you would strive for bigger goal?  But then, you successfully met that first goal and then thought—oh, what have I done?  I just did that.  I’m happy, but now I’m wigged out. 

Last year, in April 2012, I ran the Boston Marathon, the one in the really high heat.  I qualified by running the Lincoln Marathon (Nebraska) by running a personal record (at the age of 56 by the way) in 3:53:23.  Now, I will tell you that I was considering retiring from running marathons.  Boston was my 15^th marathon and 15 is a good round number. 

So I trained really, really hard.  I was hoping to maybe run another personal record and go out with a bang—especially at Boston.  I ran a personal record at my first ever Boston Marathon in 2009 at the age of 54.  That was a phenomenal experience and I was hoping to repeat that in 2012.  But, it didn’t happen.  Instead, I ran a personal worst at 5:26.47.  Can I really blame the weather for such a huge time difference?  Yep, the most I can say about that performance is that I finished.

Needless to say, as the months rolled by, I stood firm on my decision to retire from running marathons.  I was ready to let the marathon running go—the exhausting training, time commitment, aching body.   Plus, it turned out, not only was I exhausted, but I had developed a severe ham string and glut injury from over training.  I took two months off from running and just did yoga. 

That was an interesting experience which increased my flexibility from non-existent to stiff and made me realize how tough it was to come back from not running for an extended length of time.  Yes, the injury healed but at what price.  It was a good two months before I felt comfortable doing a seven mile run.  Forget trying to run at a decent pace, it just wasn’t happening.

I always found it easier and more exciting to train if I had a goal—a challenging goal.  So I set a goal for myself to train for a half-marathon and, if I beat two hours, I would train for one more marathon—so I could end on a high note.  I decided to train for the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon.  I had planned to go with friends anyway—we love the wine garden after the race, plus it’s a beautiful course.  I originally thought I’d just run it easy, but now I had this goal.

So I trained for the last three months and got my longest run up to 14 miles and weekly mileage up to 40, not bad but not great.  When I stood on that starting line, I didn’t know what to expect.  I remembered the hills… 

Well, the ending was a happy one.  I crossed the finish line in 1:58:21.  But what was so meaningful to me was how much fun I had running that distance and the thrill I had meeting my goal.  Now all of the confidence has come back and I feel a fire inside.  It’s a good feeling.  But isn’t this true of any challenging goal—not just running? 

I signed up for the California International Marathon in Sacramento on December 8, 2013.  Yes, it’s a fast course and many people qualify for Boston on that course.  So, I’m wigged out.  I had made a promise to myself that I would go support the 2014 Boston Marathon, whether I run it or not.  I know it will be hard to qualify for 2014—just meeting the qualifying time won’t cut it.  Talk about a challenging goal…  Will one more marathon turn out to be two more marathons?  Maybe…we’ll see. 

Note:    My book, Breaking Barriers, will be published in 2013.  Email me at dolores@breakingbarriersblog.com if you are interested in being included on the email list.  “No, sheer effort is not the key to getting what we want.  It’s much easier than that.  Yes—easier.”   

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Picking up my number for the first time.

How can I express how sad and horrified I was at the bombings at the Boston Marathon?  I couldn’t take my eyes off the television all day.  I felt like I was there—my spirit was there.  Just last year I ran in Boston but it seems like yesterday. 

The Boston Marathon is a symbol of excellence and pride.  I worked hard, really hard for 10 years to qualify and I finally made it in 2009.  My first trip to Boston was like being in a fairy tale.  The energy of the city was electric and the bright yellow shirts were everywhere.  I met people from all over the country and the world.  When I visited the expo and picked up my race number, I felt like I was about to run in the Olympics. 

The weather was perfect that year.  I was amazed at the crowd support, especially the college girls offering kisses to the runners!  Even experiencing Heartbreak Hill was a thrill.  To top off a perfect experience, I ran a personal record at Boston.  I was 54 years old.  Talk about being ecstatic. 

The poster is proudly framed in my living room with the caption “Greatness goes by many, many names.”  When I discovered my name was written on that poster— I felt a sense of great pride.  I made it—a dream come true. 

My second trip to Boston was last year, 2012.  It was not so perfect but it was wonderful none the less.  With temperatures reaching to 90 degrees on some parts of the course, I did not run a PR—I ran a PW.  Again, I was amazed at the phenomenal crowd support to those of us struggling along the course.   I wouldn’t have made it without them.   I finished and I took pride in that. 

This year when I saw the bombs explode and the carnage that was left behind, I cried.  A dream turned into a nightmare.  Who would have ever thought that the Boston Marathon would become a war zone?

But isn’t it tragedy and hardship that makes us stronger?  Of course, Boston will come back stronger than ever.  There is a spirit and a pride that terrorism will not destroy. Boston Marathon runners are a tough group.  They will be back.  I believe the Boston crowds will be back to support this historic marathon.  If I don’t run next year, I’ll be there in the crowd cheering.  The Boston dream is alive and well.  Boston, here I come!

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Half way to the finish.

On April 15, the 117^th running of one of the world’s most prestigious marathons will take place—the Boston Marathon.   But I will not be there this year.  Why?  Because when I ran last year, I ran the slowest marathon of my life, coming in at 5 hours, 26 minutes, and 47 seconds.  Needless to say, I didn’t qualify.    

Yes, I know what you’re thinking—wow, that’s really slow.  Last year it was unseasonably warm with temperatures reaching up to 90 degrees on some parts of the course—especially if you started running at 10am like I did.  When I lamented with other Boston marathoners, I realized my time was much slower compared to my last Boston in 2009 (when I came in at 3 hours, 53 minutes, 42 seconds) than the other runners.  They added 30 minutes—maybe 45 minutes to their times.  I added much more than that—like an hour and a half.

So I walked away from my Boston experience as a failure…  Of course, I thought about my perceived “failure” for a long time.  I knew that I over trained because I was injured after the marathon and I was fatigued.  But, enough excuses!  What is vitally important is that my mindset changed over the last year. 

Have you ever set a goal and tried your best, I mean really tried hard, and then didn’t meet your goal or performed worse than you could have imagined?  I’m not just talking about an exercise goal.  Maybe your marriage failed or you lost your job.  Maybe you flunked that test or didn’t get the promotion.  Sure, it feels really bad when it happens.  Sometimes, depending on the disappointment, it takes a long, long time to let go of the anger.  But when you do, that opens the door to realizing the gift in every failure. 

If you think back over your life, isn’t it really the “failures” that make you strong?  If everything was easy, life wouldn’t be any fun.  Take Thomas Edison, for example.  He failed some 1,000 times before he successfully invented the light bulb.  When asked how it felt to fail 1,000 times, Edison responded that he didn’t fail 1,000 times, that the light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.  Now isn’t that a great way to look at failure?  It’s not really failure at all—it’s steps in the process of success. 

My last year’s performance at the Boston Marathon was not a failure.  It was a success to qualify, a success to start the race and to finish.  Finishing that slow marathon was much harder than the faster one.  I am proud of my determination and perseverance.  I have a confidence now that I didn’t have before.  I can withstand a tough challenge without giving up.  But the most important point here is that I jumped into the game.  I’m living life and failure is part of the game.  As long as I can see the gift in every failure—I’ve won.   

Note:    My book, Breaking Barriers, will be published in 2013.  Email me at dolores@breakingbarriersblog.com if you want to be included on the email list.  “No, sheer effort is not the key to getting what we want.  It’s much easier than that.  Yes—easier.”

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First of all, let’s define older runners.  I will maintain that age is a state of mind, but for the purposes of this blog entry, let’s say “older” is 60 years old.  Isn’t it funny how that perspective changes the older we get?

When I turned 40 and entered the Masters Division at road races, I remember disliking the term “Masters”, it seemed too old.  I had just run my second marathon and broken the magic four-hour barrier at 3 hours and 55 minutes.  Hell, I was only five minutes away from qualifying for the Boston Marathon—only five little minutes!  I thought I was just scratching the surface of my running talent.  I was seeing visions of Olympic stardom.  Little did I know that I would be chasing that Boston dream for years and years before I finally qualified for the first time at the age of 54 with a time of 3 hours and 53 minutes—but that’s another story.

Now I am looking at 58 years old—right around the corner at the end of July.  Wow, I’ll be 60 years old before I know it.  Will I be old???

But I digress.  There was an experiment published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research which tried to prove the hypothesis that athletes over 60 are noticeably less efficient than those who are younger.   The study revealed that the opposite was true.

When scientists fitted runners with masks that measured oxygen use while running on a treadmill, they discovered that runners 60 and older where just as physiologically economical as younger runners—even those in their twenties.  Timothy Quinn, a professor of exercise science at the University of New Hampshire and lead author of the study, stated that contrary to their expectations, economy did not decline with age.  Instead, the study suggested that aging lungs and leg muscles have no trouble using oxygen efficiently and that older runners can still be fast.

Whew, there is still hope for my future running goals.  Maybe you don’t have the insane desire to run fast in your sixties.  It doesn’t matter.  The encouraging thought here is that we can do something now to stay fit and strong as we age.  Isn’t living a life with good health and freedom of movement worth striving for?

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It is now three weeks after the race run in hell—well it felt like it anyway.  It was a phenomenal hell, if I may be so bold, with the excitement of a grand, historic race.   The angels that lined the streets cheering us on and offering water sprays, ice, orange slices, and popsicles were instrumental in my success to make it to the finish line—the shining gate of heaven.  The 2012 Boston Marathon is over.  Now what.

My recovery is coming along—actually slower than I expected.  There are two parts to marathon recovery, one is physical and the other is mental.  Let’s cover physical recovery first.

I have found through my experience that my body recovers more slowly the faster I finished.  That makes sense.  If I ran crazy miles in my training (like 22 miles on Sunday followed by 12 miles on Saturday running 60 total for the week), I found I could run faster longer, but, despite all the training,  the speed still caused me to have a longer recovery.  So I expected after Boston—posting  the slowest time in my life at 5:26:46—that my body would snap back rather quickly.  Not so…

I have always maintained that running a marathon is more mental than physical.  My emotional recovery has been slow and is undoubtedly affecting my physical recovery.  Again, through my experience, I have always had a period of post marathon blues.  All of a sudden I don’t have a challenging goal for which I’m striving.  I made it—I finished the marathon.  My life is back, I’m not running for hours and hours every weekend.  Usually, a week or two later, I’ve adjusted and happy to be going on with my life.

This time was different.   I had another stressful event taking place at the height of my marathon training.  I joined Toastmasters six months ago and entered the International Speech Contest.  I don’t know which is more stressful, standing at the starting line of a marathon or standing in front of a room full of people, judges included, about to give a speech.  The timing of the contest was not ideal, but I dove right in.

I won the chapter contest and advanced to the area contest and I won the area contest and advanced to the division contest.  I was on a high.  I ran Boston on Monday and competed in the division contest that following Friday.  Double whammy.

I didn’t win the contest…actually I bonked (blanked on my speech) and then developed a severe case of cotton mouth.  Do you know what it’s like talking in front of a bunch of people with your mouth sticking to your teeth?  It was not a pretty site.  Talk about realizing your worst fear!  I knew the speech.  I was well prepared and had delivered it successfully many times before, but not this time.  I did recover and I finished the speech.  I was grateful to have ended that week having finished both the marathon and that !#X!!X! speech.

Okay, after that speech, all the pressure of the marathon and the speech contest was gone.  I crashed and I felt tired, achy and sore.  The feeling of fatigue is now barely lifting and I actually had a strong eight mile run today—the longest since the marathon.   Life goes on after a marathon (and a speech contest) is over.  The best therapy is to create the next goal.

I will be running the half marathon in Santa Barbara on May 12 with some friends.  I do not plan to race it but to run it for the joy of running.  Of course there will be wine at the end of the race—after all it is California wine country.   I’m looking forward to it.  Onward and upward!

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I heard a phrase uttered among many marathon participants after the Boston Marathon last Monday.   “I ran a PW.”  Yep, I also ran a PW last Monday.  You guessed it—personal worst.  This marathon tested even the fittest of runners.  It was hot—really hot—record-breaking heat which was reported to reach 90 degrees in parts of Boston.  Some 4,000 runners deferred their entry to the following year, but I didn’t—no, not me.  I trained hard and I was determined to run.

I was seeded into the third wave in corral two, so I started just a minute or two behind corral one which was the first group that took off first when the gun sounded at 10:40am—as the sun was bright and bearing down on us.   A wonderful day if you were going to the beach.

Wave three took off in Hopkinton.  Since this was my second Boston, I knew what to expect and I glided through the first three miles which were mostly downhill.  It was at mile three that I realized I was not going to glide through the rest of the marathon.  I slowed down.  I had started drinking Gatorade and water at the second mile water station and apparently I gulped too fast because at mile 10 I got a bad cramp on my left side.  I had to walk at mile 10—mile 10.  I remember thinking I had 16 miles to go including the Newton hills and it was already really hot.

I decided I would not think about how far I had to go.  I would just take it mile by mile.  Once I rubbed out the cramp, as best I could, I started to run until I felt like I was going to overheat and then I walked to cool off.  I started taking my time at the water stations.  I followed this pattern the rest of the marathon.  I was concerned about my brother Danny and his wife Amy (who came to Boston to support me) and the other friends and family who were tracking my progress through text alert messages or on the website.  Were they thinking I was dead somewhere on the course due to heat exhaustion?  They knew I was too stubborn to quit.  I was dropping further and further behind my projected finish time.  I wished I had brought more Advil with me, because my feet hurt, my back hurt, my head hurt…you get the idea.  I really didn’t think I’d be out on the course for such a long, long time…

The crowd support was phenomenal.  They set up extra water stations along the course which came in handy in the final miles.  Many people took out their water hoses and created sprinklers for the runners.  People were offering lots of ice on the course and orange slices.  There were plenty of high-fives for those of us who were walking.  The BAA set up water tunnels along the course which I took advantage of.  I worked hard at cooling myself off every chance I got.

When I finally got to mile 25, I allowed myself to think about the end—only one mile to go.  I wanted to run the final mile.  I picked up the pace to a blistering 12 minute mile pace.  When I turned the corner and saw the finish line about a half mile away, I was inspired enough to run to the finish—it was the longest half-mile I had ever run but I finished!! !  I know many, many runners did not finish.  Okay, it was my PW by far (5:26) after 15 marathons but I finished.  What is amazing is that I ran a PR (personal record) at my first Boston Marathon in 2009 (3:53).  But, somehow, I think I will treasure this finisher’s medal even more than the first one—it certainly took more effort.

Congratulations to all of the Boston runners who braved the course and kudos to the wonderful people of Boston who supported the runners and the Boston Athletic Association for organizing a well-run marathon.  Thank you, Danny and Amy, for your support and encouragement.  Enjoy those cow bells!

Anything can happen in a marathon—just as in life.  As I have said before, the pain doesn’t seem so bad—now that it is a memory.

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The Boston Marathon is only eight days away.  The training is over.  It was an exciting, grueling, devastating, and worthwhile adventure.  I sometimes wondered if the day would ever come.  But it is almost here.

Six months ago when I started training, I was excited and energetic.  After all, I was training to realize my life-long dream for the second time.  At 90 days out, the real training kicked in and the grit and determination kicked in as well.  When the mileage got tougher six weeks out (55 to 60 miles per week), I questioned my sanity but kept pushing forward.  I finally made it to the taper two weeks ago and with the decreased mileage, I now have my energy back and the confidence that I can go the distance on April 16.

This is my 15^th marathon and I can rely on my experience to either help me or hinder me on race day.  On the positive side, I know what to expect.  On the negative side, I know what to expect.  Anything can happen during a 26 mile run.  Much depends on your level of confidence and the effort you gave to your training.  If you did the training, the marathon will take care of itself (assuming you don’t go out too fast).

From my previous experience of hitting “the wall” so many times (that elusive barrier which can crop up anywhere from 18 to 24 miles when your body will run no further), I know to pace myself at the start of the marathon.  I also know to not be a slave to my GPS, I need to run how I feel—I have always run stronger that way.  I have also learned that running fast is not as important as running strong.

Boston is an exciting city at marathon time and the energy is electric.  Since this is my second time I know how to negotiate the excellent train system and to go to the north end for a great pasta dinner.  The crowds lining the course will be enthusiastic and supportive and, once past Heartbreak Hill (right past mile 20), the course is mostly downhill to the finish.  It’s a challenging course, but I ran a personal record when I ran it the first time in April 2009—at the age of 54.  A great memory, but I will not pressure myself.  I will do the best I can.

I can see the finish line and I can see the big smile on my face when I pass it—strong.  Boston—here I come!

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Yea, I finally made it to the taper before the marathon!  It’s downhill from here—my weekly long runs and mileage will significantly decrease.  I completed the training miles and I know I am physically and mentally ready to run the distance strong on April 16.  I must admit, there was a short time, that I didn’t know if I could do it.

When I ran my first 20 mile run three weeks ago, I felt strong and my weekly mileage was up to 58 but I had been slowly building my long run and weekly mileage so I had been running over 50 miles a week for the last six weeks.  But something snapped in my head.  I got really tired and felt generally fatigued the following week when I ran a 22 mile run and logged my highest mileage of 60 miles.  I had a tough time motivating myself to complete the miles last week but drug myself out to run my last 20 mile run on Saturday and logged 58 miles.   Why am I running manic miles?  It’s Boston!

But, as I recall, in my previous marathon training efforts, I also reached a “breaking point.”  It’s this point that truly defines a marathon runner.  It would have been easy to justify a decrease in mileage and rest—after all the decrease wouldn’t really impact performance just three weeks away.

But, the marathon is more of a mental challenge than a physical one.  I know when I am heading into the final six miles in Boston, that I will rise to the challenge because I rose to the challenge in training.  I am mentally tough.

Kudos to anyone who has trained for a marathon and experienced the highs and lows of running long distance.  If you do the training, the marathon will take care of itself.  Crossing that finish line is a high you will never forget!

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