Back in October of last year, I thought it would be a good idea to celebrate my 42nd birthday by running 42.2 kilometers. An idea so good, the numeric symmetry so perfect, that I signed up for a marathon even though I wasn’t running at all at the time. I had only jogged 3 times in the prior 3 months, never more than 5 km, and an ankle injury from the summer before was still bothering me.

And yet, I convinced myself that with 6 months of solid effort I could get myself into marathon shape. I had the time to train, I had the willpower to get it done, and I had the experience of having done it once before. Although the version of me who ran that marathon was a lot younger and realistically long gone (the human body replaces all of its cells every 7-10 after all) – that was pre-parenthood, pre-broken hip, and pre-turning 40. I was going to have to figure this out largely from scratch.

Last time I ran the marathon, I trained with the Running Room. This time I convinced my good friend David (also 42) to train with me. He had been running regularly (heat mapping all of Vancouver), but had never attempted a full marathon before.

We came up with a plan together and tried to do our long runs and harder workouts together. More importantly, we kept each other focused and motivated throughout the long winter of training.

Tomorrow I get to put all that training to the test as I race the beautiful BMO Vancouver Marathon.

Training Plan

Most marathon training plans are 16 weeks long. We had an extra two months. So, we spent November and December getting a steady baseload with easy, steady runs, so that once January rolled around we would be comfortably handling 30 km of running a week. David was already doing close to this, but I had a lot of catching up to do.

Once January rolled around, we kicked off a 16-week training program derived from Caffeine Bullet. I was aiming for a 3:45 marathon and David was aiming for 3:30, but we were able to do our Saturday long runs and Tuesday interval/hill workouts together.

Training Successes and Setbacks

The biggest success of the marathon training was the Saturday long runs. It was so good having a friend to chat with, especially as the runs became longer. I did a few by myself with just podcasts to keep me company and they were a lot harder to finish. But more than making the time fly by, I loved the conversations we had and the time to reconnect and socialize. I work from home and am a natural introvert, and I didn’t realize how much my normal weeks were lacking in human connection. I also got to do some training runs with Colin and Owen. Colin is signed up for the half marathon and Owen just loves to run. I hopeful we continue to do more social runs, like our fun journey to Rocky Point.

Everything was going almost perfectly to plan until April 2. We had gotten through the darkest days of winter, we had gradually increased the distances we were running without injury, we squeezed in runs even when the ground was covered in snow, we kept mostly to the schedule even when we were traveling. And then I had a setback I hadn’t anticipated.

I got COVID, and it was bad. It started with a sore throat and I just thought it was a light cold or flu. Then, I ran a fever for 2.5 day and had trouble sleeping. When that cleared I didn’t have any energy to run. After 7 days, I was starting to panic – searching for backup marathons in case I needed to drop out.

I ended up missing 8 days of training during the pinnacle of our training plan, and had to slowly ease back into things when I started running again. I think I’m back to where I was before, luckily without any lingering side effects, but I definitely lost valuable training time.

And then 2 weeks before race day, just as I was feeling like COVID was behind me, I had a heavy door slam on my ankle leaving me with a nasty cut right where the skin pushes against the shoe. I only missed one running workout, but I had to switch running shoes to ones that put less pressure on the ankle. It’s not ideal, but I’m hopeful it’s healed enough now that I won’t notice it during the race.

Race Goals

Overall, my goals for tomorrow are:

1. Finish the race
2. Finish strong
3. Finish in under 3:40

Stretch Goals:

1. Finish in under 3:30
2. Beat David
3. Run a personal best (PB) – Under 3:27

Picking a goal time for a marathon is extremely hard. My last marathon was 12 years ago. My last races were a 5 km park run before I started training and a half marathon two years ago. Not great benchmarks, but if I put those into a race time predictor I get 3:39:00. So, I figure that’s my baseline and I can do better.

When I registered back in October, I said my expected finish time was 3:45. On April 1, my training was going well enough that I was dreaming of 3:30 or even a PB. With COVID and injury setbacks, I think 3:35 – 3:40 is a more realistic now.

We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I wanted to run the first 5 km with David, but he’s definitely gunning for a 3:30 finish and I don’t want to burn myself out in the beginning of the course. Hopefully I can find a good pace to settle into.

Maybe my fancy shoes will give me the edge I need to do well tomorrow. I have a new pair of Saucony Endorphin Speed 4. Not quite super shoes, but definitely nicer than anything I’ve raced in before.

If you’re viewing this on May 4, you can follow my progress live here. Afterwards, I’ll be sure to write a post-race report.