I want Boston!

There, I said it!

When I first started running about 1.5 years ago, I fell in love with Trail Running and while those around me talked about the Holy Grail of marathons (Boston) I turned the other way and focused on trail running. Don't get me wrong. I still love trail running and was proud of my accomplishments from last year but something happened in November of 2006 which changed my thought proccess.

While training for a December marathon last year there was a 10 Mile race in Whitby which I had to do as part of my training. I had never really pushed myself to run a "fast" race before because when you run trails it forces you to be a little more cautious and slower than on the roads. With the encouragement from my great running friends (Nancy, Theresa, Miriam and Ken) I decided to race this particular event. To my amazement I was able to run a 4:35KM pace for 10 miles (1:13). I was hoping to do it in 1:20 so this gave me plenty of confidence as I prepared for my upcoming marathon in December.

Then came my marathon in December. I again was hoping for between a 3:45 to 3:50 time but felt great along the way and ended up with a 3:39 finish.

My goals for this year were to complete a 50 mile race in May and then run a marathon in the fall (Scranton). After doing some serious thinking, however, I have decided to concentrate on improving my marathon time. I understand that this will be a huge undertaking but I'm willing to put in the time and effort to make this a reality.

I will need to run a 3:20 marathon time in order to qualify for Boston in 2008 and it will more than likely take me the whole year to prepare for this. Thankfully I have great runners who inspire me on a daily basis and I have already started to train for the Mississauga marathon in May. Instead of the 20+ races I did last year, I will focus my attention on some 5 and 10K races to improve my speed and do a few trail runs for "fun." My hope is to take off a few minutes from my personal best in Mississauga and then do the Scranton Marathon in October (http://www.steamtownmarathon.com/)


Tomorrow I start a 5 week hill training program as part of my marathon training. This will be something new to me so it should be interesting.
Wish me luck!