Boston: Final Taper Week

My final taper week was not ideal. On April 11, 1 week before the race, I did my final little long run workout: 12 miles via 4 easy, 4 MP, 4 easy. The MP miles felt much harder than they should have, but I chalked it up to that workout almost always feeling terrible - usually it's my worst long run of the build. My stomach felt slightly off but I figured it was just something I ate.

The following morning I woke up around 3 a.m. feeling terrible. I won't rehash all of these details, but April 12 I stayed home from work sick and spent the whole day worrying that I wouldn't even be able to make the trip to Boston, much less run the marathon. It started as a stomach illness that quickly progressed into a sore throat and cough, which was odd (I tested negative for COVID). April 13 I still felt pretty bad but went to work because I had way too much going on not to, especially with 5 scheduled vacation days coming. I went out to run 8 miles with a couple of friends that morning but ended up cutting it to 6 miles, and running 7:50 pace felt as hard as many workouts I'd done this season.

April 14 I had a little workout scheduled: 3 miles at threshold with 0:30 surges down to 5k pace at the end of each mile. I knew I wasn't going to be able to do that, but I thought I'd try 3 miles at MP (6:25ish) or maybe 3 x 1 mile at MP with short recoveries. I made it 1 mile in 6:40 and just didn't have any more to give. I felt so weak. I still had 3 days and although my acute symptoms were slowly improving, I felt like I was getting weaker.

April 15, 16, and 17 all involved short runs at 8-something pace that felt hard. On my final run in Missouri on April 15, I told my running buddies I didn't think I could even complete a 3:30 marathon in my present state. Everyone kept saying, "You never know, you'll just be extra rested, you'll feel great by race day", but in the back of my head, I knew.

My symptoms did improve each day and I was thankful that I felt decent enough to travel on April 15 - though our first flight was delayed due to airplane computer issues and we sat in the Springfield airport for 5 hours longer than planned. Wearing a mask all day at the airport and on our flights made things worse - I felt like I was suffocating and just breathing in sick air. However, Amy, Colin, and I were pretty excited and optimistic despite the airline hiccups and re-bookings. I made up a song called "We are never ever ever gonna leave this airport" (sung to the tune of Taylor Swift's "We are never ever ever getting back together"), and we committed to doing 26.2 vlogs for our running group [spoiler: that was very ambitious!].

Waiting

Amy, Colin, and I arrived at our hotel in Boston around 11:00 p.m. that night, and the long day of travel plus lack of dinner didn't do me any favors (we had to run across the Chicago airport to arrive at our gate right before they shut us out, so there was no time to grab food). Amy and my other roommate Jen's flight was on time but the hotel wouldn't let her into our room because the reservation was in Amy's name; Amy tried calling multiple times but couldn't get through, so Jen met us in our hotel lobby when we finally made it. Colin was in a different hotel and navigated to it solo by bus and train.

I kept a small bit of optimism because my symptoms improved each day and I wasn't wheezing. I also kept thinking that I ran a 2:58 in Houston sick, so maybe I could still run in the mid-2:50s, which wasn't my goal but would be okay under the circumstances. In hindsight though, every 4-5 mile run felt really hard and I was very weak. I was going to run the race no matter what, but I vacillated on whether or not I should still start in the professional field. Jen, also in the pro field, swayed me. She'd run in the pro field several years before coming off an injury and had come in around 3:15 that year. The entire experience was hard to turn down, so I went into it knowing that I wasn't strong enough to run what I'd trained for (2:45-2:49), but hoping that I could still pull off a sub-3. I also knew that I might not, and thinking about my sub-3 streak ending made me sad but I preferred that to not starting or not finishing the race. Sometimes you have to choose from only crappy options!

I did everything I could to get well during the week. It seemed to be a virus so antibiotics weren't an option, and I race poorly on those anyway. I took several OTC meds and herbal remedies. I drank lots of hot tea, ate a very antioxidant-rich diet, and slept as much as I could. Maybe I should have taken more days off work or off running, but I really don't think it would have made a significant difference. This illness was going around at work and almost everyone in my department caught it, so I'm also not sure if I could have avoided it. All in all, I wasn't not mad at myself over this because I don't think I made any errors, but I was disappointed in the circumstances.

The story continues here.