Making peace with the Boston Marathon
I simply was mentally not prepared to run a strong marathon
In light of recent events here’s a few words on the Boston Marathon. I raced Boston in 2019 and although I was aware that it is not the easiest road marathon out there, I still was totally surprised and very disappointed when I hit the wall at the half marathon mark already. I was literally looking for a bus to shuttle me to town (fortunately I didn’t find one), because I was so overwhelmed by such a huge and unexpected failure. I eventually managed to finish the race, but the price was high. 21k of pure suffering to finish with a less than mediocre time. This awful experience left me painfully question my marathon abilities, even my abilities as a runner in general.
It took me a long time to figure out what had actually gone wrong. It was not the "a lot helps a lot" training which kept me in chronic stress and fatigue. It was not the challenging race course. It was not even the bad fueling. It was not the jet lag and also not the cold I got 2 weeks before the race. It was not even my exuberant desire to always perform well on the marathon distance.
The reason why the Boston Marathon 2019 hit me so hard was, that I didn’t have a plan B. I simply wasn’t prepared for any deviations from the perfect race I had in my head in the weeks, days, hours and minutes before the race. I stood at the start line with literally zero problem solving abilities for this particular marathon and very few for racing in general. In short: I was mentally not prepared to run a strong marathon.
Three years have passed since then and I am facing a much bigger and much more unpredictable running challenge, the Western States 100 in late June. My mental preparation has come a long way since Boston and I have learned so much about game plans, racing scripts, controlled efforts, self talk, pacing by feel and in-/externalization. My gratefulness mainly goes out to my coach Karim Ramadan for all the important lessons he taught me. Reconciling those mental skills with a profound physical preparation gives me great confidence, that the Western States 100 will be a great experience that I will keep in my heart and mind for the rest of my life.