24 hours away from qualifying for the Boston Marathon - dress rehearsal

 On the advice of Coach Bruce I did a  complete dress rehearsal this morning.

I set my alarm back ten minutes from its usual time. Unlike most of Sunday’s runners it’s actually a slight sleep in for me. Well, it should be. Unfortunately Charlie the hillbilly cat woke me up 20 minutes prior to me alarm going off. Oof.

Met Glenn at Tim Horton’s at 5:45 am for a plain-toasted-bagel with strawberry-cream-cheese and medium double, double.

Drove over to Mall at Lawson, parked, and ran very easily over to the start line. This light jog will be tomorrow's warm up. I did bring my heart rate up to 150 beats per minute about 10 minutes before race start with 150 on-the-spot high knee steps.

I ran 7.3 km easy along the course. I did a few 400 meter pickups to race pace of 4:55/km. I timed these for the uphill or downhill portions of the course to help with visualization. I ran up the finishing hill visualizing pushing myself up those last few hundred meters without looking at my watch or obsessing with pace – just smile, feel strong, and press myself. It’s easy to obsess with the hills on the course but the truth is that there are no serious hills on the course – it’s Saskatoon, how could there be? Nothing on this course compares to the hills on the back half of the Vegas course.

Several good things happened this morning. I am really glad I went through this exercise. I feel good about my pre-race ritual for tomorrow – from Tim’s, to parking, to warm-up, to race start – I know what I am doing in the morning. I discovered one thing I had neglected -- take a bottle of Gatoraide in the morning to rinse down the pre-race gel.

I have cycled the course and mentally rehearsed it several times. All of this has me in a very positive frame of mind.

I rounded the corner to the finish line this morning just as a crew of three volunteers (led by Colin French the start/finish line coordinator) were starting to set up the temporary stands at the finish line. I ran through the piles of aluminum benches with my hands held up in triumph and made the three volunteers clap for me. Then I chipped in for 15 minutes setting up bleachers until I got overcome by the cold.

I have a good picture of what to wear tomorrow. Upper body: Marathon Blossom running t-shirt (my most recent tie-dye) over an Under Armour sleeveless t-shirt. The Under Armour layer makes things more comfortable if it’s wet. Cycling arm warmers. My first thought was nothing on my arms but Heather reminded me of the arm warmers and I think it’s a great idea. I may toss them somewhere along the way depending on conditions. Over that I will wear my Sugoi breathable rain jacket and I will accessorize with coordinating black visor and lightweight gloves. I will start off wearing a sweatshirt which I will remove in the moments before the race starts and dispose of it.


Thanks to family and friends (and Hannah the dog) for coaching, advice, support, and encouragement. Running is a funny pastime. Although running can be morbidly solitary you don't get to take a shot at your goals without a whole bunch of people helping you get there. At least I can't. I need people around me to motivate me.


In December before the Vegas run, I thought I would succeed. This morning I feel that I KNOW I will succeed tomorrow. I actually look forward to the challenge of running through the pain.

Now if I could just regulate my intake of pizza and red wine...