It has been over two years since I have run a marathon. The last, was Boston 2008 and my time of 3:22 fell a bit short of my hopes.  The year before I placed 3rd in my age group with a 3:17.

My claim to fame is having qualified for Boston at the age of 50, in 3:10, the qualifying time for Open Men (under 35).  As far as I know, 3:10 remains an Ontario age-group record for the marathon.  The qualifying time in my age-category is 4:05.  I’m planning to run Boston 2011 so it is time to start building mileage and inject more intensity into those miles.

Here I am in 2008, alongside some of those “Open Category”  men.

Currently, I’m running 45-50 miles a week with little high-intensity stuff.  Where am I going to find the time to run another 20-50 miles a week?  And, the motivation to run many of those miles at a very fast pace?

The key elements of marathon training are a long run, a tempo run and interval workouts.  I don’t mind the long run.  Strangely, there is nothing I find more satisfying than the depletion following a run of 18 miles or more.  You can get hooked on that feeling.

Intervals are another story.  It seems unlikely that I will find it in me, to do the 6 x 1 mile workouts at 6 minute pace with a 2 1/2 minute break, that I did a few years back under the tutelage of my coach, former elite steeplechaser and now professor of religion, Zeba Crook. And the tempo runs of 4 x 20 minutes at half-marathon race pace?  Who was that crazy woman?