Congratulations!!! You finally earned that coveted spot on the starting line at The Boston Marathon! Check this video out for a course preview as well as some race day tips!
The broadcast is now starting all attendees are in listen only mode okay hey guys i’m just waiting a few more minutes to uh see if we get a few more people if you can hear me and you can see my screen can you just type in the chat box
That that we’re all good hey guys can you hear me anybody anybody out there you i can’t hear you so you need to type in the chat box if you can hear me you’re all on mute all right i’m gonna assume that you can hear me and we’ll get going um okay so
All right let’s get going here okay so uh first of all um that’s shut um i am the operations director for the run formula um so i do a lot of the coaching um for run formula and um in addition if you are part of qt2 at all you
Or orr or any of the brands of um qt2 llc you’ve probably had some kind of interaction with me because i do a lot of other stuff for the company as well from billing some content management i’m also a dietitian i’m a registered dietitian so i do poor diet work
Um so yeah so i’m kind of out and about and i do a little of everything um one thing the thing that i primarily focus on though is is the run formula and um so i’m gonna do a course preview today on the boston marathon i’m going to talk
A little bit about the course a little bit about what to expect on race day um a little bit about nutrition and how it’s it’s a tad bit different for uh for boston um being what boston is um i am um and you know some of you on this webinar
Listening to this webinar have probably run boston you you know the course so this might just be a good reminder for you um whereas some of you might be new to the too new to the race and you might pick up some good stuff so let’s get rolling
Okay so first let’s talk a little bit about the number of racers we got going here for the boston marathon um as you can see last year was a bit of a down year if anybody raced last year you know why um it was pouring down rain gale force winds
In the 30s um pretty much as miserable as possible so finishers down a little last year i think last year was the highest um dnf rate of all boston so um definitely a tough year last year but in general roughly you know in that 25 to 27 000 uh range of
People running and finishing um this is by no means the largest marathon in the world um but it is one of the largest i ran new york city this past november and i was it was the first time i ran the race and i was absolutely amazed at the number of
People that were our run new york city it’s about double even a little bit more than double of what boston is so definitely bigger races but suffice it to say 27 000 people running on the same course on the very narrow sometimes narrow roads of boston
Um as most of you know the uh only about two or three miles of the boston marathon course is actually in boston um it starts uh 26 miles out of town in a little town called hopkinton and that is is a really small town and the start is extremely narrow where
It starts the roads are narrow um it’s there’s not a lot of you know room for 27 000 people so why am i kind of harping on this a little you just need to be prepared to be running with people every step of the way obviously depending on where you are in
The race if you’re running 250 it’s gonna be less uh less dense up where you are if you’re running four hours it’s going to be more dense if you’re in one of the charity sections it’s definitely going to be very dense but just be prepared for that aid
Stations may be crowded don’t get frustrated and don’t give up on fluid fuels um most of all do not waste energy trying to weave in and out of people um that’s a big mistake that i see at a lot of the big um races if you’re one of my athletes you will
Hear over and over again about how um about how i don’t want to see any weaving in and out i want to see as close to 26.2 miles on the garment as possible i don’t want to see 27 i’ve seen over 27 miles run in marathons because
People are doing a lot of weaving it just wastes energy it doesn’t get you anywhere any faster you just kind of have to accept at these bigger races which i know many of you have done but just you know just as a reminder and if you’ve never run a big race
Just remember it’s it’s going to be a little frustrating at times uh here is a picture of as you can see in this picture um that’s mile 25 there so it didn’t spread out a whole lot for this group um just tons of people as based on the numbers
That these people are wearing um in the in the picture this is that’s like charity that’s really high numbers or like charity slot numbers um which just means that it’s again that’s a very dense packing of people in that in that range so but that’s that’s kind of what you need
To expect um and just kind of mentally wrap your mind around so that’s that so let’s talk a little bit about the course itself um straight shot start in hockington finish downtown um on boylston um the towns up through the start are small and um definitely you know
Narrower roads as you get closer and closer to town things start opening up and spreading out a little bit um in terms of the course itself and the terrain many know many kind of know boston as being a tough course the course itself is is extremely fair but there’s
A couple components of it that can make it tough if you don’t execute properly one of these components is um the fact that the first well as you can see from the little elevation i don’t know how well you can see this but the first four and a half almost five miles are
Quite down um so what ends up happening there is people go out way too fast um because it’s the excitement of the boston marathon and um you’re going downhill and most people let’s face it most people uh start off too a little too fast anyway um in marathon so that that is
Is a big trap at the boston marathon and then you’ll run flat just kind of rollers um up until you know halfway past halfway you actually go down another big hill around 16 and then what happens um after you’ve beat your quads up quite a bit
Um you get into the newton hills in 17 18 19 up to 20 and a half 21. um so the newton hills themselves are nothing if you would run them on any given day you wouldn’t be you know if you were just in the middle of a five mile run for example you
Wouldn’t be uh you wouldn’t be very impressed by the newton hills but where they come in the race so late um and also because again a lot of people go out too fast in marathons and don’t pace properly this is especially true in boston with all the down to start
Um and the excitement of the the the race itself so the newton hills kind of beat you up there through 17 through 20 21 and then it’s there is um mostly down and flat to the finish so the finish can be very fast so that’s just a little overview um
A few more points it’s a straight shot there’s not many turns compared to many marathons i don’t know if any of you have run like chicago has a lot of turns that kind of stuff makes races slower um the good news about boston is it really is a pretty straight shot
Until you get downtown there’s really not many turns um so that’s the nice part about it um about 38 feet of elevation gain per mile but again um much of that elevation comes in that 16 to 20 mile range the newton hills um so because it comes at the later
Stages of the race and it kind of is is a lot of it is clumped all together that’s what makes this course tough or known as a tough or slow course um and again a lot of the the first part of the course is down so be wary there this course
Can be fast um but it’s again notoriously tough because people and yes i’m looking at all of you uh go out too fast on the hills like i said on the downhills like i said beat up their quads um and then the newton hills become the newton mountains
So um when we talk about pacing i’ll talk a little bit about how to handle the the terrain and the elevation to make it a fast course for you but just know that that is the big trap of the boston marathon here again is the coarse elevation as you can
See down down down down down and it’s not all down through five miles i mean it’s there’s little bumps up and then down again but um the first oil is really down um and then it kind of flattens out and it’s a little bit little bumps here and there you go down
Another big hill to 16 and then that’s when the newton hills there’s they they kind of there’s four of them heartbreak is the last one uh the infamous heartbreak hill is right here and then you go down again to the finish and flat so all right so pacing and race execution
Are of utmost importance in boston um you one could argue that pacing and race execution are of most importance in any marathon um but it’s especially true of boston because boston isn’t one of those like like a chicago or a london or a um you know a berlin or something where
You can pretty much dial in to one pace and just steady run the same pace the whole way it’s just not going to happen in boston so let’s talk a little bit about pacing um first it’s important to understand what your you know goal pace should be and that’s
Dictated not by you know oh i think i want to run a 255 therefore that’s my goal pace really goal pace should be based off your training and if you’re you know any qt2 run formula out rival racing athlete you’re gonna have a pacing plan from your coach
Um to kind of tell you okay this is what i think you can run in in on you know relatively good conditions so this is how we’re gonna do this um let me just talk a little bit about um the the run calculator on the run formula website because
This can help you um this run run calculator can help you kind of determine again what is that as based on your training inputs and your training data why it um what should that goal pace be so let’s talk a little bit about how to use this calculator
Um obviously custom distance is 26.2 miles um like i said there are 38 feet per mile of ascent elevation gain um in here what you’d be put is run training mileage so basically you want not just the biggest mile or the biggest week of miles you’ve ever run
You want the average of your six biggest weeks within 10 weeks of the race so you’re not counting like oh last year i ran a 50 mile a week we’ll count that no no you’re counting in the training cycle leading up to boston what are your six biggest weeks average those together
So let’s just say that’s 45. if you um ride a lot we can count some of those miles but let’s just say you’re a pure runner so you’re only running you’re not riding at all um years of experience is not total years of running but years of experience
Training at this level so for instance i’ve been a runner for close to 30 years but i didn’t run you know 45 mile weeks all those 30 years so let’s just you know in our fake person here let’s just say they have two years of experience at this training level
So the 5k run time then this is the piece that we manipulate a little bit um you have an idea of what you could run a 5k in but so let’s just say for this person it’s 21 minutes and then you hit calculate so what we’re going to do first
Is look at um is look at what what the training outputs are so we put in 21 minutes um look at these race distances sometimes people have run some races leading up to um the marathon in the training cycle so let’s say you um you ran you actually did run a 10k and
You ran around 45 minutes or you ran a half marathon leading into the race into boston and you ran a 140. um then this looks about right we’re we’re on track but go down here and check out in zone one zone two and again these are the heart rate zones
That we at qt2 run formula outrive will use um if you’re not one of our athletes the zone one would be you know your aerobic pace zone two would be tempo pace just kind of take a look at these and see are they is this lining up properly
Um is my zone one ab like in the middle of my zone one when i’m running is my pace for my long run around eight somewhere between 8 30 and 9 minutes so is it around 8 45 um is my zone 2 pace like in that 8 30
8 15 range if all of this is lining up then you can look here and a run calculator says you’re going to run about 333 as based on again the inputs how much mileage you’ve run about where you are fitness wise um the amount of climbing that’s in the
Race itself how much experience you have those are all the factors that factor into what is that gold time if you look at those times and you’re like you know what my my z1 pace is actually faster than that i actually ran like a 135 half marathon leading into it then play
With this 5k number a little until you go back and you see okay yeah 138 yeah my that’s better that changes the z1 cases just play around with that number until you get the proper outputs that will then give you a um an as based on your training
Uh goals for for the race okay so that was a big description of the run calculator um let’s go back here now and see now that we know okay my goal um appropriate goal is 3 30. i think i can run 3 30 at boston
Now we’re going to look at okay how are we actually going to execute this um so i actually like i really like this this find my marathon knock on this this pace band um situation here i really like this um this website because it helps you to see
For various races as based on the terrain what your paces are going to look like um okay so what you do this is i’ve already brought off the the websites for boston there’s definitely there’s hundreds of different marathons in this database so if you’re running something else you can
Use this for really a lot of the different marathons out there but i’ve already brought it up for boston what you do is you’re going to type in your gold time we’ve figured out 330 is an appropriate goal so we’re going to go down here we’re going to go to 3
30. now over here it’s starting to create a pace band for you and that’s based on a start strategy of evenly paced start and a pacing strategy of even effort not even pace even pace would be run eight minute miles the entire way but remember i told you
You that’s tough to do in boston um because of the elevation changes and things like that what i highly highly recommend for this race is to do either a conservative start or a very conservative start and match that with a negative split um negative split i i if you’re one of my
Athletes again you’ve heard this so many times negative split is how you run your best marathon um for an open marathon i’m not talking about iron man marathon but how you run your best open marathon times and all the world records um are negatively split at the marathon distance or
Or close to it so um i definitely put in negative split here and then choose either conservative start um or a very conservative start and what that does over here is it creates the pasteband and it shows you okay for the first mile i want to be around a
Second mile 805. so look we’re starting off actually a little slower than gold pace for the downhill miles now this is absolutely opposite of what most people do but trust me when i say this is how you run boston and this is how you run
Well in boston um so you’ll run a couple miles slower um then gold pace through the start and that’s again a conservative start if you fi if you choose very conservative start it slows you down even more um through the first miles um and then um what will happen is it’ll start to
Pick up the pace as you see through halfway um you’ll see here mile 17 is in 18 um and even a little bit in 19 and 20 21 these are the newton hills so this is why you’ll see some slow slower miles through here but then it it it has you running
Finishing strong basically which is exactly how i would pay for marathon um so again once you have a good gold time in mind play around with this kind of get a good idea of um you know what the miles will look like throughout okay um and just an fyi there are no
Pace groups in boston i don’t you know um i i don’t inherently trust pace groups but there that’s not even an option in boston um which for a lot of the bigger races it is so but boston just doesn’t play that game so okay so that’s pacing
Now i just did this whole big you know lecture on pacing and pacing appropriately and finding a good goal time and then um and you know then negative splitting and all that um but one thing that boston does one trick it plays is there’s some pretty schizophrenic weather situations that we
Have going on in boston so if any of you are from this area you know april and new england could mean 80 degrees it could mean 30 and pouring down rain like last year these are some of my favorite pictures of some of our run formula athletes this
Is from last year obviously tim here um as raincoat upon raincoat maureen this is one of my favorites of all time she actually wore for the entire race um dish gloves because her hands were so frozen last year again it poured down rain it was in the 30s the wind
Was i can’t even explain it the wind was brutal last year um and it’s a point to point course as as you saw um so if the wind is a is a headwind you’re gonna be fighting it pretty much the entire way um and then there are years this is a
This was a relatively good year um this was two years ago i think um it was one of the better years it was in the 60s throughout the race so very fair there have been years where it’s been in the 80s so it can definitely be very hot
Basically what i’m trying to say is the wind or i’m sorry the weather is all over the place so when i was talking about pacing picking appropriate um gold time and then negative split things like that that’s for a relatively good condition year and let’s face it
That doesn’t often happen in boston so that’s kind of a that’s kind of one of the tough things about this race as well um you get some doozies when it comes to weather um obviously if you’re going to have gale force winds or you’re going to have 80 degrees
You’re gonna have to adjust those gold times and the pacing appropriately so just another thing to keep in mind when it comes to the boston marathon okay so let’s talk a little bit about the aid stations um gatorade endurance and water at 25 different aid stations so
At just about every mile you can get gatorade endurance switches and a very good sports drink for you water they have cliff gels but they’re only at 11.8 17 and 21 and a half um you are going to need gels or blocks or twos or whatever you’re having
Way before that so that means you need to carry your own um you know don’t rely on the course for your gels your your calories other than your sports drink so so just a word to the wise there okay let’s talk about a bit about the
Logistics of the boston marathon it is a late race start but in a very early start to the day so point-to-point course you have to get your body out to hopkinton um and then as you can see here this athlete they call it the athlete village
Um you kind of just hang out there for hours um you get out that you wake up really early and you get out you you’re either bust out there you can be dropped off out there there’s multiple different ways to get out there um but then once you’re out there you
You kind of hang out for a long time um and then you kind of grow anxious and you get bored and you get annoyed at the fact that you’re sitting there and you just want to run this race um basically the race i think 9 50 is the earliest start
Um some of the charity waves some of the later waves start 11 30 11 45 so we’re talking about a lunchtime um marathon not necessarily the early morning marathons like like most other marathons um so um so yeah so so to that end um a couple words about nutrition
Extra breakfast calories versus regular marathon so because i’m a dietitian this is one of the first things i think about okay what are we gonna do nutrition wise to overcome the fact that we’re running at lunch time um so in our feeling plans we recommend for the core diet we
Recommend before a breakfast before a marathon two and a half to three hours before the race i would still recommend that however that might be you know depending on your start time that might be 8 30 9 o’clock in the morning and because of that and you’ve probably
Been up since 5 a.m to catch your bus and get out to the athlete village i also recommend athletes to have something when they first get up in the morning be it very simple it could be a banana half a plain bagel a granola bar just something extra in addition to that
Bring your race morning breakfast with you have it three hours before but also at the athlete village have extra sports drink have an extra banana have extra gels have extra chews um have an extra half of a bagel just in case if you’re out there and you’re starting to feel
Like you need a little something um as well so take extra food with you extra calories um and this isn’t just your standard morning normal breakfast kind of marathon you need to have some again extra calories um on marathon race day because of the time um also take out the athlete village
Lots of extra clothes up to the start line to keep warm um if it’s an 80 degree day you probably won’t need that um but just take more than you think you need out to athlete village because again you’re out there um you’re sitting around out in the open
Unless if you’re one of the special vips you just sitting outside you don’t get a special tent or anything like that so bring a plastic bag to sit on so you’re not um so you don’t get wet you’re not sitting on wet grass and again just be mentally prepared to get bored
Anxious annoyed you don’t want to start the race like that so just prepare yourself that you’re going to be sitting there for a while and just you know come to peace with it early on um i did the new york new york city again i did it in last fall it’s extremely similar
You get bust up you wake up at you know the crack of dawn you get bust out or you take the ferry out and then you get bus to wadsworth uh fort wadsworth and again same thing you sit there for a long time and you just wait
And and you can use up a lot of energy being anxious about that or you can just relax so of course i remember i am i am uh recommending that you just relax so um after the race have a plan of action to meet up with your family and friends
Um i know this would sound silly to a lot of you that have done this race before and it’s like well of course why wouldn’t you but just again if you’ve never done a big race before if you’ve never done boston before know that it is a complete it’s
A cluster a big race is always a cluster afterwards be prepared to have a very long walk to wherever you are trying to go even if you’re in you know one of the big downtown um hotels you are going to have an extremely long walk through the finish line area to get
To your family so if your family is expecting you to finish you know three and a half hours after you start um you know just give them the heads up you may not see me uh for four four and a half hours it’s going to take a while to be reunited so
They don’t get worried um if you’re like me you do not run with a phone so you can’t you can’t call people and start trying to um you know coordinate also have a place that you’re going to meet they obviously the race takes care of that they have a family reunion area they
Have these huge letters where you can um you know say hey family meet me or meet me at that big x um so again just have a plan um let them know that it’s going to take a while for you to get through the finish line
And furthermore soak it all up you know to get your medal like get all the pictures you can when they ask if you want your picture taken regardless of what kind of race you just had you get your picture taken because you just finished the boston marathon um and that’s pretty darn awesome
Um just a little bit about the mental side of it and this is not necessarily specific to boston but basically you have 100 control over a few things on race day and those should be your number one priority focus on those goals what do you have a hundred percent
Control over certainly your attitude um you know oh it’s pouring down rain and there’s scale force winds okay i could be grumpy about this or i could accept accept the fact that it’s going to be a slow hard day and i’m just going to enjoy it and i’m going to live to tell
About the year that i ran the boston marathon when it was 32 degrees pouring down rain and gale force winds um so you have control of your attitude so therefore control it to your benefit you also have 100 control over your fueling plan how you do your nutrition
So therefore do it appropriately you also have control over some targets like pace and heart rate to an extent um so you can also execute those and control those as as best you can um things not to even think a ton about things you can’t control it all the crowds
Uh the wait time uh the weather things like that yes you should take those into consideration but don’t get anxious or worried or you know worked up about them because again those are things you can’t control and instead focus on the things you can and above all stick to the plan
Um it’s still super easy to get caught up in the hype in boston um and we all say oh no it’s not going to be me i’m not going to do it i’m not going to go out and you know 550 pace on that first downhill mountain
Before you know it you’re looking at your garmin and it says 550 pace on the first downhill mile so just stick to the plan um and that’s about it now i just have some fun facts because if you come to boston you need to be educated about about the boston marathon itself
Um as you probably all know the symbol right here you’re going to get a shirt with it you’re probably i recommend buying the coat i don’t know what what colors there are this year every year they change the coat colors but get the coat with the unicorn on it um why
A unicorn so here’s little education about the unicorn um it is actually probably they thought okay you may think that it’s from um mythology um chinese and other mythologies uh regard the union unicorn as an ideal and something to be pursued but which can never be caught um but it’s actually more likely
That the unicorn was borrowed from the coat of arms from one of the baa the baa is the boston athletic association they put the race on one of their first families so it’s just a coat of arms really but now it’s the symbol for the boston marathon
Um so it’s very iconic you’ll see it everywhere ought to start lying at the finish line something that you strive for but maybe can never achieve his full perfection so that’s the story on the unicorn um also another fun fact um you will see you’ve probably all
Heard if you haven’t it’s a famous saying here in boston right on hereford left on boylston um it is you will it’s on a million different t-shirts so that’s another thing you can spend your money on at the expo i have one myself uh it’s one of my favorite shirts
Right on hereford is these are the last two turns in the race you will take you will take a right on hereford and then you will take a left on boylston the finish line is on boylston it is an awe inspiring finish line you will not be able to hear yourself
Even think um it is it’s a crazy awesome finish line um but boylston is very long so when you make that left on boylston you think you’re done but you have a little ways to go just know you have several blocks to go um until you see that that sweet sweet
Finish line so buy yourself a right on hereford left on boylston t-shirt or bumper sticker or mug whatever so and that is it that is my story on the boston marathon we have a boston marathon camp coming up um it is not this weekend but it is the following weekend so it’d
Be march 22nd through 24th we run the whole course um it’s run out of normatech so if you are interested in coming we still have some slots available and you’ll get to see what i was talking about with the course before you get to actually run it um and now i will take
Any questions if you have questions just type it in the chat box or in the question box um i’ll wait a little wait a few minutes for questions and um otherwise you can email me um i’m just best i don’t actually have my email on there that’s kind of a problem i’m just
Best at the runformula.com if you have any questions that you want to ask later and of course if you are running the race have an amazing race it is a pretty darn fun time um and and i uh i wasn’t i wasn’t always from boston i
Uh grew up in pittsburgh but now that i’m here it kind of feels like a hometown race so it’s pretty exciting for us any questions anything anything ah bill says how do we access the run calculator the run calculator just go to thereunformula.com you do not have to be have member access
To get to it you can use it anybody can use it so it’s just the runformula.com and then you’ll see if we actually you just go to the runformula.com you can see here where it says calculators up here fill and then just click on running calculator
Maybe and there it is so you can play around with that any other questions no sure thing so i’m calling you phil you might want to be called phillip sorry about that all right guys i think that’s it doesn’t look like anybody else has questions if you think of something later on again
Just email me at best at the runformula.com and uh best of luck to you all we will talk to you soon you