Getting back to Boston

Easy 5 today in JBH and West End loop. Turned considerably colder and breezier since last night, which was OK with me. Fighting the wind actually distracted me from two stiff legs. Still wound up at a pretty good pace overall despite trying to slow down.

I'm kinda confused about tonight's run. Plan was for 5 easy. That usually means four-plus laps of the park, plus to and from the park. Unless I completely lost count,.I was in the middle of lap three, look down at my Garmin which reads 42 minutes and 4.5 miles. Garmin acted weird at the start of the run, not locking on to the satellite quickly, but that should not have affected the clock. Maybe I did lose count. I was thinking about some junk my boss is pulling on me and what I can do about it. Anyway, it was a nice easy run. Dress rehearsal tomorrow.

The hay is now officially in the barn. Dress rehearsal tonight -- put on the race togs, warmed up for two miles, two miles at GMP (or below), warm down for nearly three miles, then decided to do one more set of Hudson hills just because I still felt good. Wound up doing 7.09 in one hour, three seconds. The GMP miles were 7:50 and 7:45. If I could actually do 26.2 at that pace I'd run about 3:25. That ain't gonna happen, but maybe I can sustain 8:01 for 26.2. I'd take that (or take 8:14 for that matter; that would punch my ticket for Hopkinton 2011). But the work is done. Couple of jogs tomorrow and Thursday, drive over Friday, bust tail for 210 minutes Saturday morning.

The taper goes on. Hard to focus much on the race because work is so demanding, but I've been through this before too. Trying to hydrate, get carbs, make sure my electrolytes are adequate, etc.  Tonight a very easy 4 before it got any colder -- 35 with a stiff wind. Ran it in long pants, earwarmers and gloves, and wished I hadn't had the long pants and possible the earwarmers. I think I'll be fine Saturday in what I plan to wear, and I might even ditch the longsleeved tech shirt. Anyway, off to Bryant tomorrow after work. Have to pack and make sure everything's washed and ready tonight.

Easy afternoon jog before departure for Bryant and then Memphis. I'm ready. Man, I hope I'm ready.

This blog started in 2008 with a dream -- that a gray-haired, not particularly athletic 47-year-old from Arkansas could somehow whip his old body into shape, finish a marathon in less than four hours, then maybe, just maybe, manage to qualify for the Holy Grail of marathoning: Boston.

Today, December 5, 2009, I can report, with considerably more justification than a certain grandstanding politician had on an aircraft carrier one day, "Mission accomplished." Spiderpig is going to Boston in 2011.

It wasn't easy. Nothing athletic for me ever has been. In this case, my left hamstring and right gastroc locked up simultaneously at mile 23.5, and for a few seconds, while I was hopping around, I thought this chance was out the window too. But it eased up enough to resume running at a decent pace. Not fast enough to qualify as a 49-year-old for 2010 in a race that's already full, but fast enough for 2011 as a 50-year-old. Finished 269th overall, 226th among men, 40th in AG.

Thanks to Sasha for providing this place to blog, and for some well-timed encouragement last year that made me think maybe I could get to Hopkinton after all. And I've had plenty of other encouragement, from my training partners in Little Rock, my online friends here and on Facebook and runnersworld.com, but mainly from the long-suffering woman who married me in 1984 and has put up with my ill temper, my mistakes, my multiple bouts of unemployment and lately, a two-year obsession with qualifying for a 26-mile race in eastern Massachusetts.

What am I gonna obsess over now? Dunno. I'll find something, I always do. But it won't be getting that BQ. I got that one checked off my list.