Boston: 4 weeks to go

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Boston: 4 weeks to go

Rickshaw
Runworks 2005 5M Racer
San Francisco, CA
Joined: 26 Nov 2004
Posts: 1157

Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 8:15 pm

Boston is just 4 weeks away now, and the BAA has put the entrants' bib numbers up on their web site. From this, you can determine what starting corral you're in. Since there are 1000 runners per corral, the first digit (first two digits if 10000+) of your race number will tell you what corral you're in. Also, I believe numbers 1000-9999 will be in the wave 1, and 10000+ will be in wave 2. http://www.baa.org/cfm_Public/2006/pg_Confirm2006.cfm #6572 for me. Lucky corral six, I hope!

Rickshaw
Runworks 2005 5M Racer
San Francisco, CA
Joined: 26 Nov 2004
Posts: 1157

Re: Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 4:24 pm

Stick a fork in me-- I'm done. I finished my last long run today, a 21-miler that I completed in a pretty decent time, but still left me feeling wiped out and my legs burning. I guess I shouldn't expect to finish 21 miles feeling fresh as a daisy, though. Now it's on to the taper... Anyone else tapering for Boston or another April race? Bricks? How is it going?

Bricks
Runworks 2005 5M Racer
Chicago
Joined: 09 Dec 2004
Posts: 222

Re: Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 9:03 am

Bib #4594 for me, thanks for the link!... I got the email explaining the wave start too... I can't wait to get my stuff in the mail. Have you gotten yours yet? I did 21 as well, and had a pretty solid week training for peak week, but I too feel a bit gassed. Other than adding the 'confidence mile' to the 20, I did the week as perscribed by Pfitz. However, I skimped on a recovery run yesterday. I think the long run ended up being a little too hard of an effort. We had yet another windy day on Saturday, so 10.5 of my miles were into a stiff headwind. I did those first to avoid the headwind to finish the last half, but the strategy might have backfired a bit. I had enough gas to fight the wind and maintain a steady pace because I was fresh, but upon turining and gaining the new push in the back, it seemed to easy too pick up the pace. As a result I ran the whole thing in just over 2:39 which I know is too fast. I fear a little bit that I might have 'blown my wad' the other day, but fear more that I'm not ready to spend 35-40 more minutes on my feet (throw in the newton hills). This summer I topped out at 22 and it took me over 2:50, but I was only planning to run 20 minutes more than that on race day. I suspect I'll be relatively okay, but still fear so many unknowns of a course, race time, and terrain I'm not familiar with at all... That said, thank heaven for taper time. I feel like I can finally start looking forward to race day. Though this next week and half is no walk in the park, with a couple tough speed workouts, a 16 miler still on the map and I'm doing a tune-up 8K this Sunday following said 16 miler (Saturday). It's a fun 8K (Shamrock Shuffle) though, which at 25,000 runners has the atmosphere of a large marathon and, coupled with being my first race of 2006, I suspect will get me all jazzed up and excited for Boston!

Rustyboy

LA, CA
Joined: 14 Dec 2004
Posts: 225

Re: Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 9:29 am

I'm so jazzed for you guys. When are you both heading out to Boston?

Bricks
Runworks 2005 5M Racer
Chicago
Joined: 09 Dec 2004
Posts: 222

Re: Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 9:34 am

I'll be heading there the Friday before the race (April 14th) and will be leaving the following Tuesday evening, the day after the race. I haven't gotten around to planning the day by day schedule, but one thing I know is that I plan to spend a small fortune on Boston Marathon merchandise while I'm there.

Rickshaw
Runworks 2005 5M Racer
San Francisco, CA
Joined: 26 Nov 2004
Posts: 1157

Re: Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 10:30 am

Wow, 2:39 for 21 in a training run is mighty speedy! You're ready to fly. I wouldn't worry about having gone too hard, though. Even if it was a little faster than you'd intended, there are still three weeks to go, and I doubt it'll have any negative impact after you've finished tapering. Nope, I haven't gotten anything in the mail from the BAA yet. Hopefully soon. Good luck at your 8K this weekend! I'm doing a 10K on Saturday, which will be my last good chance to measure my fitness before race day. Since my last two races were on a big hilly course and a MP run, this will be my first chance to race all-out on a flat (I hope?) course in a while. Now If I could only manage to kick this cold that's been plaguing me for the past few weeks. It's not a major one, but it's enough to worry me a little. I leave for Boston on Saturday. It'll be a whirlwind trip, between the race and visiting all my friends from when I used to live there. I can't wait.

Rickshaw
Runworks 2005 5M Racer
San Francisco, CA
Joined: 26 Nov 2004
Posts: 1157

Re: Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 9:39 pm

I found some great elevation maps of the Boston course at http://www.csurun.org/maps/BAA/ . These are a lot more detailed than the idealized elevation profile shown on the official BAA site, which makes the course look like basically downhill miles 1-16, hills 16-21, and flat 21-finish. The csurun profile was generated from a topo map, and shows that the course is more a continuous series of little uphills and downhills. No wonder the runners' quads get beat up.

Rickshaw
Runworks 2005 5M Racer
San Francisco, CA
Joined: 26 Nov 2004
Posts: 1157

Re: Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 9:58 pm

More maps: I clearly have too much time on my hands. Here's a Google Maps route of the entire course. You can see the street map view or satellite image view. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=54347 Wow, Hopkinton is not a big town. It has maybe 10 streets. How many runners are descending upon these poor folks again?

Bricks
Runworks 2005 5M Racer
Chicago
Joined: 09 Dec 2004
Posts: 222

Re: Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:57 am

this stuff is great. i like the detail of the elevation map you found, but i don't know why those maps can't be more representative of the actual slope of the hills. i know it's an abstraction and is showing information in relative terms, but why do the hills have to look like ski-slopes when it's just representing a gradual slope.... i mean there are some spots that make it look like you'll be falling off a cliff. at the risk of having a really long graph why can't there be a graph that shows a 30 degree incline when you're running up a 30 degree incline?

Rickshaw
Runworks 2005 5M Racer
San Francisco, CA
Joined: 26 Nov 2004
Posts: 1157

Re: Boston: 4 weeks to go Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:41 am

Bricks wrote:
at the risk of having a really long graph why can't there be a graph that shows a 30 degree incline when you're running up a 30 degree incline?

I think what you're saying is that you don't want any vertical exaggeration: use the same scale for horizontal and vertical distance. I don't think that would be practical in this case, since the vertical range of the graph is only 500 feet, while the horizontal range is 26.2 miles or 138,336 feet. So if you made a graph that was 500 pixels horizontally on the distance axis, then it would only be two pixels vertically on the elevation axis. Not very useful.

Stated another way, the world is a lot flatter than it seems to us on the surface. I've heard it said that if you shrunk the Earth to the size of a ball bearing, it would be smoother than any man-made ball bearing. Weird.

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