For as long as I can remember, I’ve had the same goal – earn a Boston Marathon jacket. I don’t know if you’ve seen one before, but I love them. Not only the design of the jacket itself, but more what it represents. The hard work, determination and accomplishment that goes hand-in-hand with a Boston qualifier. I want that.

In 2014, I did line up at the start line of the Ottawa Race Weekend Marathon. I had a 3:45 time goal and a whole lot of stubborn lunacy leading the charge. I’d strained my calf a few months prior and multiple professionals had told me that it wasn’t ready for race day. Pfft. What did they know? Fast forward 5km into the race as I crawled down a side street trying not to throw up from the pain of my calf tearing. Listen to the pros guys, they probably know more than you.

I’m back now … 12 years later. I’d like to say that the calf rupture was the only setback I’ve had, but that just wouldn’t be true. I’ve spent almost all of the past 5 years on medical leave from my career due to severe illness. I’m not ready to go into those details, but I’ll probably get there as we build out this channel/blog and hopefully, one day, community. I’m quite a bit slower, but I’m also quite a bit stronger and very much smarter when it comes to listening to my body’s cries for help.

So, lets get after another week of base training … its boring, but its a requirement. I did a trial run of the Ottawa Race Weekend 5k on May 23rd and finished in 31:28. I have another race on September 20th which is, conveniently on the same course. That gives me almost 16 weeks of training to get that 31:28 under 30 minutes. And to do that, we need to build the aerobic machine.

And maybe just try harder. Lol – no, that’s 20-something thought patterns. We’re mature adults here, we build the aerobic machine.

Training Update: Base Build Week 2

Week 2 went a lot smoother than Week 1 with my back behaving and getting in 3 runs for a total of 16.91km. Don’t ask why I couldn’t do that last 90m … it bothers me too. I didn’t do a long run this week because, quite frankly, life got in the way. We really enjoyed a night out on Saturday and my lungs just didn’t have it in them come Sunday afternoon.

I’m okay with that though.

The goal here isn’t to qualify for Boston next week, it’s to slowly progress in a way that my immune system can handle the stress.

In summary, the week looked like this: