If you’ve absorbed one piece of racing advice from Runner’s World over the years, it’s probably this: Don’t try anything new on the big day. From food to gear to your prerace routine, Training Tweaks That Will Get You to a BQ.
is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster whos contributed regularly to, gastrointestinal or otherwise.
gastrointestinal or otherwise Boston Marathon How to Train for the Boston Marathon point-to-point course that requires a lengthy bus ride to the start if you’re staying in the city. Those quirks have thrown off more than one well-prepared runner’s carefully honed eating, sleeping, and bathroom schedule.
Although I can’t claim to have completely solved this preparation problem, I’ve found a way to reduce its effects. Many runners spend time studying the course and visualizing the race itself, and some even do a course simulation workout.
I take things a bizarre step further and do a dry run of my entire 36-hour prerace routine. Here’s exactly what that entails:
I pick a long run.
I’m based in Chicago and train for Boston with a group that starts each long run from January through April at 8 a.m. central time on Saturday. That’s about two or three hours before the Boston Marathon begins, especially if, like me, you start in the second or third wave. On one of these weeks—usually an 18- or 20-miler late in the training cycle—I split from the group to do my own thing.
I shift the timing.
Though I don’t go so far as to do my long run on Monday, I do take into account the general hour that things will happen on race weekend. This starts with my meals the day before. Our group dinner in Boston begins at 5 p.m., at least an hour earlier than I usually eat. Because of that, I typically eat breakfast and lunch earlier than usual, and of course, snack frequently. I mimic all this the day before my dress rehearsal.
After dinner, I lay out my gear and try to go to sleep, much as I will on race night. I’ll admit, I snooze a bit more soundly in my own bed than I ever do in a No detail is too small to practice. And that includes the bus ride out to the start the night before the race—but there’s not much I can do about that. I set my alarm for 3 a.m., the same time I get up on Patriots’ Day.
Why on earth do I have to wake up seven to eight hours before the run begins, you might wonder? Well, we stay in a hotel in Boston and take a charter bus out to the starting line in Hopkinton. We’re usually waiting at 5 a.m. for a ride that leaves at 6 a.m. sharp. Though I’ve experimented with eating on the bus, I find things go more, ahem, smoothly if I eat my oatmeal and drink coffee in the hotel room before I head out.
I pack my snacks.
If I eat around 3:30, that still leaves somewhere close to seven hours before I run, far too long to go without topping off my fuel stores. I have tried-and-true, easily digestible snacks I know my stomach can tolerate—dry cereal, white bagels, bananas, sports drinks. On race day, I carry them in the one small, clear plastic bag I’m allotted on the bus to the starting line. In my dry run, I carry the same items in a small bag during my imitation bus ride.
Which…brings me to the part that’s probably the most over-the-top about all this:
I fake the bus ride.
At just about the time our bus will pull out of the Marriott Copley Square for the hourlong drive to Hopkinton, I plunk myself down in my living-room recliner with my bag of snacks, water bottle, and reading material (the most recent Runner’s World, Running Shoes & Gear New Yorker First Boston Marathon? Heres What to Know).
I allow myself to get up and pee every once in a while. After all, one of the perks of belonging to a group with a chartered bus, rather than riding the usual school buses, is an on-board bathroom (though I’ll note that it doesn’t seem like quite as beneficial if you’re unlucky enough to sit directly across from it). Otherwise, I stay there for about as long as it takes to drive the length of the course backward. I read, snooze, and listen to music, all while keeping myself folded into a position I’d be able to maintain on a bus seat.
My husband’s also an early riser, though not that early—he’s usually out of bed by 6 on Saturdays to do his own workout and go to the grocery store. So about midway through my pretend journey, he comes out, remembers what I’m doing hunched over in the recliner, gives me a little half-awake side-eye, and heads upstairs to make coffee.
Once I “arrive,” I take a few quick walks outside. Again, thanks to the chartered bus, I can stay inside and protected from the elements once I get to Hopkinton on race morning. But my running buddies and I usually get out for a bit to take a stroll around the athletes’ village, surveying the selection of bagels and Gatorade, hitting the (relatively fresh) porta-potties, and snapping selfies by the “It All Starts Here” sign. So on my run-through, I take a few quick walks around the block, returning to the bus/recliner in between and always keeping a careful eye on the time.
I walk to the “starting line.”
Another unusual element of the Boston Marathon: Once your wave is called to leave the village, there’s a hike of about a mile to the starting line. I just happen to live about the same distance from the Chicago Lakefront Trail. While I typically But running the, on dress-rehearsal day I walk the whole thing, mimicking what I’ll do on race morning.
Every Patriots’ Day still dawns with its share of unpredictable moments. But thanks to this neurotic ritual, I always feel more in confident in the things I can control, including my food choices, my timing, and how I occupy my mind that morning.
The first time I did this—in 2015—I definitely stressed less. And, I beat my best Boston time by about a minute, despite the fact that it was raining and cold. I can’t guarantee the same would be true for every Boston-bound runner. But if all you have to venture is a little lost sleep and some time in a recliner, it just might be worth a shot.
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
