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It’s been a long time coming but it’s finally here…my recap of the first ever Virtual Boston Marathon. 

Running is hard. Running a marathon is really hard. Running a virtual marathon is the hardest thing ever! Of course I knew this going in, which I suppose only made it worse. 

I’ve gone back and forth about writing this post for fear of putting out something so negative, but here it is. Let me start by saying, I do realize that it’s great and amazing that I was able to qualify for Boston and yes that, in itself, is something to be proud of. Knowing and acknowledging that somehow didn’t make it any more to an amazing experience.

If memory serves me right the virtual Boston Marathon participants were given a window in which to run it starting on September 7th and ending on the 14th. I chose to run it on the 7th, Labor Day, because it worked with my schedule, it was a holiday which meant traffic would be minimal and family would be home to support me.

Days before…

I had roughly planned out a route ahead of time. I say roughly because I knew where the big miles would be but there was a possibility that I would need to tack on a half mile to a mile at the end. My first mistake (of many), a half mile is a long freaking way after you just ran (walk, crawl) 25ish miles. 

The night before…

The night before my husband (God love him) decided he would ride his ebike (electric bike) along side me to keep me company and carry supplies. I know I should have been grateful, I do, but this just gave me anxiety. Now I had him to worry about. At best I was going to be out there for 4 1/2 to 5 hours, that’s a long time even on a bike. Ugh.

I slept as well as can be expected before a marathon with thoughts going through my head…the big one being…Did I train enough? Probably not (turns out, not. This is really my 1st mistake) but “I’ll be fine. I can do hard things.”  I went over the route in my head, did a mental checklist…fuel, phone charged, Jaybirds charged, Garmin charged, sunglasses, etc. 

Show time…

Okay, so now it’s morning and it’s dark. Thankfully my husband was there (yeah I know, I’m grateful) with his bike light so I could see where I was going, last thing I needed was to trip and fall. The first 10 miles were pretty smooth, except for an emergency poop stop in the bushes at the beach. The bathrooms were locked due to the pandemic but my husband had wet wipes and all was good. At this point he tried to get me to eat a banana but my belly wasn’t having it so I declined. I hadn’t had much of anything up to this point except half of a Cliff bar before leaving the house. (3rd mistake, not fueling well before or during the “race”)

At mile 10 my girls and one of their boyfriends met up with us to cheer me on. I stopped and chatted while my husband used the restroom (of course these were open and I no longer needed them). At this point I was feeling pretty good. I ran past 2 guys running in the other direction who noticed my bib and yelled out that they were running the virtual Boston too, YAY!! This gave me a burst of energy and put a big smile on my face. And then things got real.

Attitude is everything.

I’ve said this before but dang it is so true! My attitude and positive thoughts are what got me through training for my qualifying race as well as the race itself, you’d think I’d learn. My attitude during this “race” sucked. All I could think of was how far I had to go and I had to do it alone. Yes my husband was there but I had no fellow runners, no spectators, no kids sticking their hands out for an energy filled high five. No witty signs or words of encouragement.  No real Boston experience. 🙁

A few times I stopped and sat on the side of the road in the grass not wanting to go a step further. I can’t even say my legs were necessarily tired, they just didn’t want to go. My heart didn’t want to go. The hubby did the best he could at pushing me forward and trying to get me to take fuel but I was not having any of it. At one point he offered to call the girls to have them come pick me up, but “No” I was going to finish even if I whined and complained the whole way. Which I did. 

Family and friends make the difference. 

Having my family and friends cheering for me along the route (and virtually) made all the difference. I had people at miles 10, 13, 15, 18 and 23. This was a long day for them too because it was taking me forever to get through this ordeal, but they made it tolerable and brought tears to my eyes every time I saw them. I knew I had to finish because people were counting on me. There was no way I could go back to work and say I gave up. How disappointed would they be in me? It got me to the finish line.

The finish line!

My husband turned off for home as I was tacking on that last mile but my neighbor showed up and talked me in to the finish line. And there was a finish line, complete with tape and balloons, curtesy of my girls. It was more than I expected or felt that I deserved. More tears. 

Lessons learned…

• I will never do another virtual marathon ever again. Never! (Not even sure I’ll do a regular marathon.)
• Running is all in your head. Okay, I knew this but I was rudely reminded.
• Attitude is everything and mine can suck. 
• Training well is so important.
• Food is fuel, and fuel is needed for endurance. Fuel even if you think you can’t. 

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I hope you took something positive from this very negative post. Again, I am proud that I had the perseverance to train for and thus qualify for Boston, but I still am disappointed for not having the Boston experience. Those are my feelings and I own them.

 Have you done a virtual marathon, or would you? Have negative thoughts ever taken over a race for you?

I’m linking with Kim and Zenaida for Tuesday’s Topics and Debbie, Deborah, Lisa, Jen and Laura for Runners’ Roundup.

Thanks for reading. 

                        Denise