<p>BC:</p>
<p>Your fat loss and improved fitness must have made a huge difference in your tennis game. At your level, that must have been really holding you back. If you have all the shots, quickness and stamina counts for a ton in tennis – whether it’s getting to the net or having the gas to chase down balls in a long rally. Half a step difference probably is night and day.</p>
<p>Yup - most players hate the super fit guy that just keeps getting the ball back. Even if you win the point, you may have to hit one, two or three more balls to do so. If you look at the top four players in the world, three of them are counter-punchers and the fourth is an aggressive player that can play incredible defense. The game in the 1990s was offense with guys like Sampras, Agassi and bit hitters and serve-and-volley players.</p>
<p>Then Poly strings came along and these strings could tame the power of oversize frames and meant the advent of the heavy topspin era and much more of an emphasis on baseline play because it’s hard to come to the net against a tough topspin game. This tended to favor Europeans because they grow up more with clay courts and a topspin baseline game.</p>
<p>This necessarily means that top players have to be incredibly fit. If you look at the top ten, you’ll see that everyone is very, very fit. The fitness levels today are far higher than they were a few decades ago. A lot of this stuff is very scientific - you already know that from your research.</p>
<p>The first time I played the guy that I played today, I got killed. This was when I was probably around 220+. I not only couldn’t get to his balls, but his balls had a huge amount of kick on them. So imagine just straining to get to balls and then popping them up because you can barely reach them - he just comes up to net and puts them away. When I beat him last summer, it was very hot and sunny - I can hang out in that kind of weather and play for at least three hours. Someone that’s thirty or forty pounds overweight? You’ll get tired and you’ll damage your joints. Believe me, I know!</p>
<p>What I need to do is play against stronger players to improve reflexes against faster incoming balls. I’d have to get into league play to do that - there aren’t a huge number of strong players in my area and the local club that used to host league play doesn’t do so any longer - there are no local clubs with league play. I’m not even sure where the closest club is that hosts league play. My guess is that it’s at least 40 minutes away. That’s a headache because it means driving for practices and driving a lot further for matches. I certainly can’t commit to that until the summer. The best that I can do right now is to network to find stronger players.</p>
<p>The guy that I played with today plays with 4.0s to try to get practice in regularly but he kills them in matches (which is what you would expect). I’m the same way. The practice is good but you don’t really get pushed and you don’t get better without getting pushed.</p>
<p>Edit: pre-match nutrition: two slices of cheese pizza and a banana. Tennis is like MOWC running - it means that you can be more liberal with food. Unfortunately I can’t play every day.</p>
In 2009 when I ran Grandma’s in Duluth the weather was perfect all week leading up to the race and on race day the wind shifted (had shifted overnight) and wasn’t blowing off of the lake. It was hot to start and got up to the mid-80s. People were dropping like flies. At least in Nashville we had already had hot weather (mid-June race) but up there in MN it had not yet been hot. I saw people get badly sunburned and there were many who wound up in the medical tent. I struggled, but did better than most, got 2nd in the age group and a BQ time. I do better than many do in the heat, although it certainly takes its toll.
My son swam this morning and is now on a 80 mile bike ride in really strong wind. Glad I’m not out there.
I live in Boston, and I got hot walking 15 minutes to the store earlier today. I can’t imagine running a marathon in this, especially since tomorrow’s supposed to be hotter than today.
Pre-trip cardio dance class this a.m.
Will be gone for the next 2 weeks. I know you all will be staying the course; I’ll be eager to catch up on my return.
79 degrees. Sunny. Warm breeze. So I put my lily white legs in a pair of Nike running shorts and went out for a hilly 5K walk/jog. I did the version with slow 2 minute jogging intervals… and I mean SLOW.
Nice workout, beautiful day, but this may be the end of my jogging for a while. I felt it in the achilles tendon again, for the second weekend in a row. Only triggered by jogging. I don’t need achilles tendon issues, so it’s time to maybe shut it down for several weeks.
<p>Drove down to our son’s apartment in the West End and we walked over to Government Center where they had the Big Apple Circus Tent (why would you put such a tent in Boston?) there with a huge line waiting to go into the tent. I’ve never been inside the tent so I don’t know what they do there but I assume that they pick up their packets and clothes or get a spaghetti dinner. We then went to Faneuil Hall for a quite bite. We then walked back to the Beacon Hill area to pick up some groceries at Whole Foods. Of course a large number of runners found the only Whole Foods near the downtown area and were either getting a bite or buying some groceries to take back to their hotel rooms.</p>
<p>Saw the orange Adidas Boston Marathon jackets on some folks. I don’t know if that’s the official jacket this year or if people were wearing jackets from previous years. Also saw Boston Marathon shirts on some people. Lots of parking meters had signs indicating that there was no parking on the streets either Sunday/Monday or just Monday. It seems like runners aren’t getting deterred by the temperatures tomorrow.</p>
<p>Good luck to the Boston Marathoners in the heat! My BIL in NH says it’s supposed to be 88 there today, which for that far north is just unheard of this time of year.</p>
<p>As predicted, my glutes were sore Sunday from the basement crawl space adventure on Saturday*. 
Sunday I went for a nice walk but did NOT run.</p>
<p>*It was about a half hour of straight hands & knees work, squatting on my haunches, & lugging a bucket of water & rags. And a flashlight. 
DH knows he owes me one!</p>
<p>DH is running Boston again this year. His projected finish time gets later with each split. It’s gonna be ugly.</p>
<p>1moremom, good luck to your husband! I’m keeping fingers crossed for all Boston runners. Someday, I will run this race, maybe even with D.</p>
<p>At this point I just hope he’ll take it a little easy. He’s can add almost a minute to his pace and still qualify for next year. </p>
<p>BB, have you run a marathon?</p>
<p>A curiosity question, since not in this lifetime am I (nor probably anyone I am close to) running a marathon: Why is the Boston marathon a big deal? Are there not that many marathons? Or is there something about the Boston one that makes it better than the others?</p>
<p>It is the oldest annual marathon and probably the most well known. People come from all over the world to run it (usually wearing something identifying their home country, which is fun for the spectators). There are many other marathons, but Boston is so popular runners have to qualify to run it and many who qualify still don’t get in.</p>
<p>1moremom, yes - I ran one last fall (in record-setting heat!)and qualified for Boston. I was training for it, but my unexpected illness derailed my training plans, so I had to sit on the sidelines.</p>
<p>You must be fast! I’ve run a half; that’s enough for me.</p>
<p>The orange jackets are this year’s official jackets.</p>
<p>Boston is special because it’s old and because of the qualifying time requirements.</p>
<p>I don’t care for the race- did it 3 times in the 80s and qualified again for 2010 race but didn’t even consider going. It’s exciting- yes, but it’s not my kind of race. I don’t like the crowds and the logistics. I have other favorites. I think it’s hard to do well because of being bussed out to the start, the long wait, the excitement of the city the day before etc. Also, it’s expensive to travel to and stay in Boston. Obviously, plenty of other runners feel differently. I DO like the jackets, though!</p>
<p>iDad- be careful of that Achilles. </p>
<p>I’m following all my friends online and they are slow. I hope everyone is being safe. It’s brutal.</p>
<p>The 2011 winner, Geoffrey Mutai, has dropped out.</p>
I heard the top marathon runner in the world dropped out at mile 18 with cramps.
I managed to run 31 minutes straight this morning! I want to run a half marathon next April in St. Louis with online running friends, so I’m motivated. MoWC, have you heard about the get-together? I hope you can make it!
The Boston Marathon is special because it has great, knowledgeable spectators. Perhaps because it covers such a wide geographic area or perhaps because most people have the day off (Patriots Day), but the crowds from Hopkinton to Boston are fabulous. The marathon is really ingrained in the culture of the Boston area.
I remember spectating as a college student in 1976, the “Run for the Hoses”, when the temperature was in the 90s. I only ran the race once, but I still remember how great I felt crossing the finish line.
The first marathon Monday after we’d moved from Boston I was feeling very sad to miss the action. I couldn’t go back up for the race because I was about 10 days from having my first child. As it turned out, that morning at my weekly doctor’s visit, the doctor decided it wasn’t safe for me to wait until my due date. He ordered me to the hospital at about 9:30 a.m. When did I finally get to the hospital? About 4:00 p.m., after I’d gone home and watched the marathon on television. Mother and baby daughter were fine. Sadly, Comcast is not carrying marathon coverage in our area.
<p>My mother’s house is a two-minute walk from the marathon route and there was a house on the corner of Beacon and Washington where the owner gave out free drinks to spectators. People did set up on the sidewalk and on his property at the corner.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to run it someday (or walk half). I think that I could join a local running club to get an entrance pass (or however they work) but I’d need a lot of running work which would set back my tennis.</p>
<p>We are fortunate to have friends (and a son) in Boston so we don’t have to stay in a hotel and a friend or I always drive DH out to Hopkinton. A good number of friends from our local running club run it and raise money for our local clinic.</p>
<p>I heard that about 4000 runners “deferred”.</p>