Running Boston: Know your motivation

By Joe DeAngelis, MD, Orthopaedic Surgeon in the Carl J. Shapiro Department of Orthopaedics at BIDMC

The Boston Marathon is different. Within the lore, history and annals of competitive distance running, ‘running Boston’ is different. It is the oldest annual marathon. Its qualifying standards make it one of the most competitive and hardest to enter. The course, traveling one-way from Hopkinton to Boston, is challenging and includes notable highlights like Heartbreak Hill, an 88-foot climb at the 20th mile.

Aside from these historical, technical and logistic problems, reasonable people do not spend their free time training to run 26.2 miles. A reasonable person wouldn’t choose to run a one-way, hilly course in April in New England where the temperature can range from the 40’s to the 80’s. To run Boston, more than any other marathon, you have to want it. Boston requires four to six months of training through the heart of a New England winter. This year that meant a certain familiarity with terms like ‘Polar Vortex’ and ‘Yaktrax.’

All else equal, running a marathon is a commitment. It’s a process of learning to run, to compete, and to endure. It’s a process that is as much mental as physical. Every training program is designed to build capacity and stamina by steadily increasing the amount of time your muscles are under tension. The volume of work completed prepares the body for marathon day. If completed safely, on Marathon Monday, a well-trained participant will have the capacity to go the distance.

However, no matter how good your training, there is a truth every marathon runner must face - the darkness will come.

No matter how well you have prepared, regardless of your strength and experience, at some point on race day, it is going to get hard. It is going to hurt. You will want to quit, stop, and go home. In this moment, at your lowest, most vulnerable place, you need to have something to keep you moving. You need a secret piece of motivation that gets you to pick up your foot one more time. And then again, and again, until the finish. This morsel of self-understanding is the greatest gift a marathon runner can have. The mental toughness not to stop comes from knowing why you are running. More than the desire to compete, or the accomplishment of finishing a marathon, having a primal knowledge of your motivation can keep moving.

My hope for this year’s Boston Marathon participants is that they take some time to reflect and understand what they are doing and why. While every marathoner struggles, this year running the Boston Marathon is something very unique and very special. In addition to the usual challenges, this year the Boston Marathon is a very public declaration of solidarity. Participants and spectators alike are going to be immersed in memory, emotion and healing. The stakes are different, so the motivation is different. This year running Boston is a statement to the world, a reminder that no matter what happens, no matter what the challenge, we run Boston because we can.