The Plan for Boston

In 2009, I planned to run the Boston Marathon--that overhyped, historic, elusive, snooty, status-granting race that's become a standard against which to measure every marathon performance. Have you qualified for Boston? Did you qualify for Boston? Are you hoping to qualify for Boston?

Registering for the race and receiving the official acceptance letter from the Boston Athletic Association seemed to carry the pomp of admission to an Ivy League college. My qualifying time had been dutifully verified by the BAA; thus, I was deemed worthy to come and throw myself at Heartbreak Hill.

But the plan for Boston was cancelled. Instead, on that April day of 2009, I walked around (walked, I say!) in an ankle brace. Stress fracture. OK, not even that: the MRI revealed a stress "reaction," just the beginnings of a fracture. Enough, though, to make hobbling from the Metro parking lot to the train platform feel like a run up that blasted Heartbreak Hill. Or so I imagine, never having had the opportunity to encounter the hill in real life.

Eventually I stopped hobbling, and after a few more injuries to add to my saga (which in my experience is the way it works with injuries), I began running again. Slowly. That is, I ran too slowly for Boston.

This weekend, I traveled to Brookings (by way of Omaha) for my first-ever South Dakota marathon, the first marathon I've ever run on my birthday, and I got an unexpected present: a reflective headband as a prize for finishing third among women in my age group. OK, OK, that isn't the only gift! On Saturday, May 12, 2012, I ran that distance faster than I have since 2008--and that means the plan for Boston is back on. I qualified solidly, with minutes to spare. It took me 3 years to move beyond that stress fracture and all its implications. But I'm back.

And I am getting a super big head over it. You know how I can tell? That reflective headband does not fit!