Boston Marathon 2011 & Matt Larsen's Final Boston training blog

We check in with Matt Larsen for his final training update before the 115th running of the Boston Marathon today.  You can follow the live action of the race today on Universal Sports.  Good luck to to everyone racing today, the Boston weather is predicted to be amazing with a tailwind on top of it.

I don’t have any exciting workouts to post about as I get closer to Boston but am excited to race as I get closer to the big day.  My intent in training was to put three solid weeks of running in once the track season started. The final three weeks leading up to Boston would be down weeks, less with the intent of tapering and more with recognition of the fact that I would take days off if time was unavailable on meet days.  I’ll give you the rundown of the workouts/runs that I ran and I’ll give you my mindset heading into race day.

4/02- Trail Breaker half- My intent was to run marathon pace (6:00 per mile) early and close a little more quickly as from about three miles out.  Well, things did not go well, and I only got about 4 miles in at marathon pace.  I did not find a groove and shut the race/workout, whatever you want to call it, down early.  I warned you in my first post that you might see this as a theme surrounding my mental weakness.  The fact was that I did not have it on this day and pulled the plug pretty early.  I’m not going to lie and say that this did not shake my confidence, but at the end of the day, I’ve always been pretty good at justifying rough days, and historically, I have shaken them off and bounced back relatively well.  I hope that is the case this time around.  The final time was about 83 minutes for the half or about four minutes slower than I plan on going out for the first half on the big day.

4/03- 10 miler with Mr. Thull- Our intent was to run easy, feel good, and dodge the bad weather- Mission accomplished.  The legs felt very good on this day, and there was no evidence that I had done anything remotely close to racing the day before.  I took that as a pretty good sign. 

So that is about all I have for workout related stuff.  I am very excited and also a little nervous for my third marathon.  The other marathons that I have run have gone completely differently.  In 2002, I was very fit for me coming off of a summer of 70, 80 and up to 90 mile weeks.  I ran the Lakefront Marathon in Milwaukee, went out hard, and faded badly…. really badly and finished in 2:47.  Man, did I feel good early, and then everything went bad from blisters, to nipple chaffing, to me having a pity party and throwing an 8 minute mile in there somewhere.  Anyway – I wasn’t mentally prepared for and didn’t know what to expect in the race.   

More recently, in 2009, I ran the Chicago marathon.  I was coming off of a summer of 40 mile and 50 mile weeks and had to start the race toward the back of the start line.  In this marathon, I also raced with a training partner, Bart, and things went about as well as I could have hoped.  I ended up negative splitting to a finishing time of 2:50.  This race went so much more smoothly because I respected the pace and didn’t get ahead of myself.  Heading into Boston, I don’t have the same type of fitness that I had in 2002, but most of my training is well ahead of where I was in 2009. If things go smoothly like they did in 2009, I think this can be a very positive experience.  The plan is to be patient.  We’ll see how it goes.