Race reports · 2022 · Marathon Readiness Series 4 of 5 · by Jay
BOCA Hawaii 30K 2022: the first dress rehearsal
Eighteen and a half miles in October, the longest either of us had ever run, and both of us upright at the finish.
The 30K is the longest race in the readiness series, eighteen and a half miles, and in October of 2022 it was the longest either of us had ever run, not by a mile or two but by a lot. Most of it runs on the actual marathon course, so it was a preview of December on a slightly smaller scale, and it was the milestone of the year for us. We'd been following the plan from the book since July and we were both in the best shape we'd ever been in. I came in at 3:01:11 and Michelle came in at 4:08:27, and we felt good the whole way through, which is the part that mattered.
Feeling good through eighteen and a half miles on the marathon's own roads gave us the confidence we needed for the marathon seven weeks later, and we hadn't had that confidence before this day. A year later we'd learned to run this one as a rehearsal instead of a race, same distance and same October with a different job, but in 2022 racing it was the point. For me that was 9:43 a mile for eighteen and a half miles, and it was the first long race where the pace held to the end.