Boston Marathon
April 18, 2011 — where will you be? It’s a Monday, just in case you were wondering and in my mind, it’s going to be a beautiful spring day, clear sunny skies with temps in the mid 40’s to 50’s with no wind. Brr… I know that’s what most people are thinking, especially here in Georgia, but on that day I’ll be in Boston and that is what I hope the weather is like. Monday April 18th is the 115th running of the Boston Marathon, and barring any problems, I plan to be there running.
Back in October I ran the Twin Cities Marathon and finished in 3:53, qualifying me for Boston. Though it isn’t the fastest marathon I have run (with age brings slightly slower times!), I am still very excited to be headed up there to my hometown of Boston. I feel I am somewhat lucky to be running Boston, as this year, almost 26,000 runners signed up for the race via the internet in just 8 hours, and I was one of them. That’s more than 3,000 people an hour signing up! It is such a huge race, one that you can only run if you run fast enough in a prior race, and the race usually fills up in a few months, never a few hours. Many people, including friends of mine, didn’t try to register the day it opened up, as no one expected it to fill up that fast.
However my gut instinct told me to go ahead and sign up and during my lunch break, I logged onto the website and registered. I had planned to register sometime during the week, but something just told me to go ahead and register that day. My goodness I would have been soooo upset had I got home and learned that the race filled up before I had a chance to register for it. I know most non-runners may not understand this, but the basic message, is that I listened to my gut.
I am a firm believer in saying affirmations, setting goals, visualizing them, asking for what you want, and listening to your gut instinct. If you make many decisions based on what your mind says, you may not be making the right decision, as many times the heart and gut speak louder. And how do I know it’s going to be a perfect day in Boston on 4/18/11? I don’t. I’m just visualizing it and praying that it will be perfect running conditions for us. Visualization, affirmations, goal setting … they all work.
