Yesterday I found out that I got into the 2014 Boston Marathon. By FOUR seconds.

Boston Marathon

Had I stopped at one more water station or gotten caught behind a few more people at the start, I wouldn’t have made the BQ – 1:38 cut! I wasn’t counting on getting in – I knew it was going be a very close call, with about 8,000 runners vying for 5,000 spots – and that I could easily be on the 4 seconds too short side. But by some miracle I wasn’t, and I am very excited. Once again –  like with my recent DI acceptance – I managed to just barely squeeze in (well, without being rejected first – ha!). But I’m in and that’s all that matters to me. The best part is that I used my 2012 Chicago time of 3:33:18 (since they accept qualifiers from Sept 22nd onwards) – the same BQ I used to get into the 2013 Boston Marathon one week before registration closed. That’s what I call a VERY lucky and extremely great value BQ!! Two of the hardest Bostons to get into with one BQ effort – *almost* makes up for not making the cut in 2011 with my NYC BQ! 🙂

It’s funny because I  didn’t think I cared  about getting into this race, perhaps mostly because I didn’t think I would. Also, I already ticked Boston off my bucket list. My first Boston didn’t end the way I had imagined, as I wrote about in RW, but I made it through the “four steps of the Boston Marathon” – I qualified, I registered, I was accepted, and I ran the race – and finally fulfilled these goals I had chased for so many years.

I registered on Sept 16th and forgot about it for the rest of the week, knowing that we wouldn’t find out until Wednesday (yesterday). It was easy to put the marathon out of my mind given how my Dietetic Internship (specifically my Medical Nutrition Therapy class) has pretty much taken over my life. Also with my recent idiotic knee injury (I fell off my bike, smack on my left knee), I haven’t been able to run for two weeks anyway. Huge bummer, btw, but I’m on the mend…slowly.

But then Wednesday morning  rolled around and I woke up with a knot in my stomach. That could’ve also been due to the fact that I’ve slept about three hours a night lately – but I’m pretty sure it was about Boston. I just wanted to know. And then I realized, I really really wanted to get in. Perhaps because I don’t think I’m necessarily going to push to qualify again – maybe I will (I do still want to get sub-3:30 at some point…) but I have a feeling that this will be my last opportunity to run it, so I wanted it to happen. I also wanted a happier ending to last year’s race. So like thousands of other “squeakers” I obsessively refreshed my email, the entry list and my credit card’s pending charges. Finally they announced the -1:38 cutoff around 2pm. It was a good feeling.

Aside from coaching and (until recently) my own occasional runs to maintain fitness, I’ve been pretty off the radar lately in terms of racing and clearly, blogging too. The NYC triathlon was my last race and I decided I just wanted to take a break, dial back the running to allow my hamstring to FINALLY heal (that was a big issue in my Boston race). I also needed a mental break – two hard training cycles back to back, combined with a tough semester and planning a wedding – it was a lot. Of course, I say that was a lot and now I’m in the DI which feels ten times worse – but oh well. So I’m enjoying the unstructured running and just being a coach to Gilda’s this season without worrying about my own training. I also hardly have time to fit workouts in so it’s a really good thing I decided to not run a fall race!

So I’m really feeling the worth of every second more than ever these days, not just with Boston but all aspects of my life right now, because I  just don’t have enough seconds to do everything that needs to be done. As I type I’m doing laundry and that has become one of my “luxury,” even “fun” activities. I’m only in week four of my DI and I’m really struggling with the workload. You know when you say you are going into something with your eyes wide open, and you know exactly what to expect and brace yourself for it, but then you’re actually in it and all the bracing and preparing you did really just didn’t matter? Yeah.

The program is great and I’m learning a lot, but it’s extremely tough to stay on top of my work and have time for anything else, like sleeping and seeing my husband (we pretty much have opposite schedules, with my night classes), you know those little things. It’s not fun feeling behind in everything, and overwhelmed and fried pretty much 24/7. I’ll give  E a hug after not seeing him for over a day and think to myself – oh yeah I just got married! There’s my husband! But I’m slowly adjusting and hopefully will get the hang of things soon. Or I won’t. In either case, the good news is that it’s all over by December 20th! Then off to California and Mexico, and back to NYC for the hospital portion of the DI (which I feel like has to be easier than this…but who knows).

So that’s the update! Basically just trying to survive and make every second count. And with a race on the horizon – the very distant horizon but still – I feel a renewed sense of motivation in my running life. I have no doubt that April 21st, 2014 will be an incredible day in Boston!