No Regrets: Inside My Boston Qualifying Race

I recently ran the Eugene Marathon - and I qualified for Boston. But what made this race so meaningful wasn’t just the finish time. It was how I showed up when things got hard.

In this episode, I’m sharing the full story of race day: the physical pain, the mental challenges, the moments I wanted to quit, and the mindset that carried me through. It’s the first in a 3-part series about the race, the recovery, and what it really means to never give up.

If you’ve ever struggled with regret or wished you could handle the hard moments differently, this episode is for you. It’s a story about resilience, support, and learning how to meet yourself in the moments that matter most.

Previous Episodes Referenced

What Marathon Training Taught Me About Healing

Experiences Are More Important Than Results

Curious what the finish line looked like?

Check out this Peaceful Eater post for finish line photos to get the real feel for the moment and the emotions involved.

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Transcript

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What happens when you go all in on a goal and everything comes down to one big day? This episode is part one of a special three-part series where I'm sharing the behind the scenes of my recent marathon. And over the next few weeks, I'm going to take you inside the race, the recovery, and the bigger story of never giving up, no matter how long it takes. Even if you're not a runner, there's something in this episode for you. Because this really isn't about running, it's about resilience, trust, and the choices that we make when the outcome isn't guaranteed. Welcome to Binge Eating Breakthrough, the podcast to help you stop feeling out of control around food and build trust with your body. If you've tried everything but still feel stuck, you're not alone. I've been there too. I'm Jane Pilger, and I'm here to help you see binge eating in a new way so you can finally break free. Each week you'll get the tools and insights to create peace with food and your body. Your breakthrough starts now. Hello, trusted listener. I consider you a trusted listener because you're willing to explore your healing journey through new perspectives, even ones that might surprise you. And whether we're talking about food, your body, or a personal goal, I trust that you're here for something deeper than surface-level solutions. So today we're talking about my marathon, my recent marathon. And if you caught my episode a couple of weeks ago, I shared everything kind of leading up to the Eugene Marathon. And that episode was called What Marathon Training Taught Me About Healing. And I'll I'll go ahead and link that episode in the show notes here. And you can kind of consider that episode as like the prequel to this series. It was about the preparation, the mindset work leading up to race day, and kind of just the overlaps between training for a marathon and recovery. And today, this week, begins a new three-part series. I'm going to take you inside the actual race experience, what came after, and the bigger journey of staying committed when the dream takes longer than expected. So I'm really excited about these next three weeks, and I hope you'll join me over these next three weeks and see what you can learn for yourself. This is not just about me talking about running. My invitation for you is to put your mind to work on how I can apply this to my own journey. Whatever your big dream is, I want you to think about what I'm sharing here and apply it to your dreams. Apply it to your journey. So today we're talking about the race itself and what it taught me about mindset, about support, and about shifting focus when things get hard. Those are going to be kind of our themes. So I want you, as you are listening, to think about how do I apply this for myself. All right. So let's talk about even just getting to this start line. I've been reflecting on when did this dream start? This dream of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. And I believe it was more than a decade ago. I remember thinking, I don't have like this exact moment, but I remember thinking, ah, I would love to run the Boston Marathon. It seems like such a magical experience, such an incredible opportunity. But I remember thinking, there's no way. I could never do that. That's not possible for me. And in the beginning, I really believed it wasn't possible. There's no way I could be fast enough. In order to qualify for the Boston Marathon, you have to run a specific time based upon your gender and based upon your age. And when I first started dreaming about Boston or even just considering, like, oh yeah, that would be amazing, but there's no way I could never do that. But that seed was planted. And then I started getting a little bit faster. I started kind of opening up possibilities of what I could do. I started seeing myself do new things that I didn't think were possible. And I kind of just opened up to the question, what else could be possible? Well, maybe, maybe the Boston Marathon could be possible. And so I started really opening up to this possibility. And in 2018, I ran my first marathon trying with the goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. And it was this race. It was the Eugene Marathon, the one that I just ran a week ago today. And I technically I qualified. I ran a Boston qualifying time for my age group at the time, but I only had done it by seven seconds. So the time that I needed at the time was three hours and 45 minutes. And I believe I ran a three hour 44 minutes and 53 seconds. So technically, I had run a qualifying time, but I knew that I wasn't going to get in because what happens every year in Boston is more people apply than they have space for the runners to get in. So what they do, you can't even apply unless you have run an official qualifying time. And then what they do is anybody who has run an official qualifying time who applies, then they look at how many people have applied, how many spaces do we have, and they end up every year with a buffer. This is the amount of time you have to have run your qualifying time plus this amount of time in order to even get into the race. It's kind of how it works. So with seven seconds, there's no way that was going to be enough. I don't remember what the buffer was that year, but it was well more than seven seconds. So then in 2019, I still had this goal. I still really wanted to do this for myself. And 2019 was the year that I had my bike accident and I fractured my pelvis in uh in that crash and had a long, painful recovery. It was full of detours. And I really could have, at that point, I could have let the dream go, but I didn't. And here's what I did. From the moment I had that accident, uh probably within a day, if not that, well, probably within a day, I visualized what my recovery was going to look like. The time that I had that crash, um, I was registered for a race. It was a world championship 70.3 triathlon race. And it was going to be one year and one day later after my accident. And I used this as my inspiration. I am going to do that race. I had a vision. I had, I really visualized what I was going to do. So it would have been very easy for me to be like, uh, there's no way I can do this. Look at this, uh, you know, all of these things. I could have looked for evidence of people who have bike crashes and never do anything again. I could have looked for all the evidence of how this could have changed things for me, but I decided this is what I'm going to create. This is the vision that I have for myself. Now, did it look like that? No, it didn't. But I had it, it didn't end up at the end of the day, it didn't end up looking like that. But I had a vision for what I wanted. So fast forward, I am still now after 2019. I have this vision. I keep going, I keep training, I keep really keeping this dream of Boston alive. And last year, I returned to the Eugene Marathon and I didn't qualify. I've shared this story before on the podcast. I can put the the link in the show notes to when I uh the episode where I really talked all about last year's Eugene Marathon. It might actually be really interesting to go back and listen to that episode compared to what I say in this episode. I don't remember, honestly, what I said, uh, what I said a year ago, but we're talking the exact same course, one year apart. And when I did the race last year, I didn't qualify. But what I did have was one of the most meaningful finish line moments of my life, crossing hand in hand that at the finish line with my husband and my pacer. And that experience showed me that the goal isn't always the prize. Sometimes the journey gives us something even more valuable. I called that episode experiences are more important than results. And it's true because that experience was way more important than the time on the clock. But I wasn't done. I tried again last year in Santa Rosa in August, and I got faster, faster than Eugene, but still not fast enough. And this year I returned, everything felt different. I had that consistency in my training. I was injury free. I was surrounded by support, and I showed up at the start line knowing that I was ready. So now fast forward, we're in Eugene. It's last as I'm recording this. This literally was one week ago today. It was cold. It was a little chilly, it was in the low 40s, which for running weather is perfect. Very little wind. It was beautiful. It was a little chilly to start. And so um I actually had latex gloves on my hands. I didn't want to waste a good pair of gloves, knowing that I wouldn't wear them the entire race. A lot of people will just get some either cheap gloves or maybe even just like some tube socks and toss them at an aid station. I just grabbed some latex gloves out of uh out of the laundry room and wore those for several miles and actually worked out great. I ended up tossing them after a few miles and uh worked pretty well. So that's how we started. Um and before even starting, I mean, I had my gloves on, but we had to figure out where we were gonna, where we were gonna place ourselves in the corral. You've got a bunch of people, everybody's trying to run different times. And the goal, my goal time was three hours and 45 minutes. Now, technically, my Boston qualifying time for my age group is three hours and 50 minutes, but I wanted to give myself that extra buffer, thinking I probably would need at least five minutes to make sure that I would be able to get into Boston. So 345 was kind of the goal I had in my mind. And so there was a pace group for 345, and uh we started right ahead of them, hoping that we could stay in front of them, but knowing if for some reason we didn't, then we could try to kind of if they passed us, we could try to stay with them. So that was kind of our um, that was our strategy. And the 345 PACE, or they had a the pace leader of the 345 pace group was a guy named Corbin. He was very encouraging. Uh, even before the race started, he was, he was really uh uh pumping people up and giving them lots of encouragement. And uh he was really just a great guy. So we start the race, everything's going pretty well. And uh, but the first couple of miles, I will say I didn't feel as good as I was hoping to feel. Uh, there was a little like, okay, we're running the pace, we want to be racing, but this feels a little challenging. And by mile four, there's a little bit of an uphill. I was having a hard time keeping the pace that we were wanting to keep for the race. Now, this isn't a great thing because, in general, for a marathon, you want to feel like you're holding back in the first few miles. And so there was a little bit of, you know, my brain was kind of like, oh no, what if today's not the day? When it was hard for me to hold that. Now, this is where things are important. I heard that voice, and it would have been very easy for me to let that voice take over and go to all the places of, oh my gosh, this is so hard. This feels so bad. We're only four miles in, I can't even hold the pace. What is this gonna look like? It really could have gone there. My brain has done that many times before, but I noticed it. I caught that thought, I heard it, and I was like, oh, you know what? I've actually felt this way and still finished strong. There are so many times. What I know about having paid very close attention to how my body responds, I know personally, it takes my body a long time to warm up. In general, the longer I go, the better I feel. My husband and I joke that I have a bit of a diesel engine. Sometimes it takes a while for it to go, but once it gets going, I can go. So I just reminded myself, oh, we're gonna be okay. I thought about the previous times. I thought about the times where my legs were tired and then they settled in. So I got to remind myself. So this is what I want you to think about for yourself too. We don't get to choose the thoughts that pop up into our brains. But here's what we do get to do. When we are aware that those thoughts come, we get to choose what to do next. And that choice can change everything. One of my favorite sayings is what you focus on expands. So had I focused on the challenge in that moment of keeping up, had I focused on the little bit of ache in my legs, it would have expanded. And it was only mile four. So then, and then here's what happened: the the 345 pace group, because we had slowed down a little bit, the 345 pace group caught up to us. And their pacer, Corbin, he was phenomenal. He was encouraging, he was steady, he was really coaching people as he was going. We started going up a hill and he's he's giving people advice about their pace, about their form. We get to the top of the hill and he's talking to everybody about breathing, taking a nice inhale, making your exhale even longer. And I was like, wow, this guy is good. But here's what I will tell you. Before that, there was a little bit of, oh no, here they are. We wanted to stay ahead of them. And here's the group. What happens if we can't keep up? What happens if they all pass us? There was a little bit of that. And then I caught it. And then it was like, oh, actually, you know what? This is great. Corbin is right here encouraging us too. We're still here, we're still in the front of the group. I shifted to the gratitude, appreciating how great Corbin was, really taking in what he was saying, thinking about my own form. And then we got into our groove and we were able to pull ahead just a little bit of that group without any effort. And then we get to the second hill. There's really kind of two main hills on the this course, pretty flat overall. So the first hill, Corbin, pretty much uh walked us through or ran us through. And then the second hill is right around mile eight. And as we were going up this hill, we got to see uh our cheering crew. And so this crew was my sister, her husband, and my childhood friend. The three of them had come to Eugene specifically to be there for us for the marathon. And the day before, my girlfriend and I had sat down with the course map and the overall map to map out just how many times they could see us during the race. They saw us eight times during the race from the start to the finish. It was so amazing. And what was so great is I knew where to look for them. So I was telling Derek, Derek is my pacer, my he's my friend and pacer. I would tell him, okay, we're gonna see them right around here. Okay, we're gonna see them. Here it comes. We're around mile 13. They're we're gonna be right up ahead. We're gonna see them at 15, we're gonna see them at 18. And it gave me something to look forward to, kind of really helped break it up. And every time we saw them, it was so much fun. It was fun to look forward to them and to hear their support. It was so much energy from everyone, all of the spectators, all of the racers. And I kept really thinking about there were several times throughout this race, particularly after we got up that the the that last bigger hill at mile eight, I told Derek, I said, I feel so much better than I did last year. And that really became an anchor. It was like this reminder of how much I had improved, of how this actually, this whole process, everything was coming together. I could remember very specific parts of the course last year and something feeling really challenging. Like it was right around mile 10 last year where my legs really started to get tired. And when we were at that point during this race, it was like, ah, I feel so much better. This was a great comparison to looking back at how much you've improved. There is an incredible book called The Gap and the Gain. And the premise of the book called The Gap and the Gain is most people spend their time looking at the gap from where they are now to where they want to be, instead of looking at the gain from where they are now compared to where they used to be. So I was very much in the gain during this race, thinking about wow, I feel so much better. The miles were going, we were ticking along, we were definitely just right in the zone of the pace we were trying to run. And around mile 17, 18, I turned to him and I said, I know we still have a long way to go, but we're totally gonna do this. And he was like, Yeah, we are. And I knew that anything could happen at that point. I knew we still had over an hour to go, but I really believed that we were gonna do it. I was really feeling good. Kept feeling good. We saw all of our cheering squad at 18, all smiles, um, waving, everything else. And even at mile 20, I had 10K to go. I had 6.2 miles left to go. And even at mile 20, I was thinking, I feel great. It's a 10K left. I was thinking about a recent 10K we did, and I really was even like, I could even imagine going faster in these last 6.2 miles. And somewhere around mile 22, my legs started feeling it. I really could feel the fatigue in my legs. And when our tearing squad, the last place we saw our tearing squad, we had seen them at mile 18, and then we saw them again at 23. And then from there, they went on to the finish line. And I was very much looking forward to seeing them. But we have a video of uh me running past at mile 23, and you can see my pain. You can see the difference between the 18, the mile 18 video where I'm all smiles and waves, and the mile 23 video where you can tell, oh yeah, she is starting to hurt. You can see this. And I didn't even look. There was no acknowledgement, there was no wave, there was no smile at mile 23. I was just focused. Now, the other thing that happened probably even before mile 23 was I started to notice a blister, a pretty sizable blister forming in the arch of my left foot. And I remember thinking, oh no, like this is not gonna be good. But then I also was like, you know what? Yes, there is a blister there for sure. And we can't think about that right now. Like that is just going to be a later problem. We'll worry about it later. But focusing on that blister, thinking about the blister, thinking about what it might mean or how it might slow me down was not going to get me the results that I wanted for myself. So again, it was really like noticing it, acknowledging, yep, that's there. And we're not going to put our focus there. What you focus on expands. So I thought, all right, well, we'll deal with that later. Let's focus on other things. Whether I was focusing on the pace, focusing on the people around me. Um, we had this great group kind of all around us of certain people. We were all running about the same pace. It was very much focused on gratitude. Gratitude for the experience, gratitude for Derek being there, gratitude for the beauty. There's so much greenery. And it was so beautiful, so much of the course. Gratitude for that. Um, I was also praying. One of the things that I do in these races is I pray for other people. So I get uh prayer requests, I review them before the race starts, and I have these prayer requests that I take with me out on the course. And it's a very powerful thing to do for me when there are times I want to take the focus off of myself in any pain or discomfort. It is a beautiful way to put my focus on something else. So I was praying for other people. I was praying for, and I'm thinking, To myself, okay, yeah, you're in a lot of pain, and it's going to be over in three miles. Some of the people I was paying praying for, their pain is not going to be over in three miles. So it helps put things into perspective. Taking the focus off of your pain, off of your discomfort, putting that focus somewhere else. Powerful. As I kept going, the pain is there. The legs want to stop. There were times my brain was like, let's just walk. This is too hard. We can't do it. And then I remembered one of my commitments. My commitment was no regrets. I do not want to look back on this race and have any regrets. Any what if? What if I had done this? What if I didn't do this? What if I didn't walk? And so I asked myself, okay, what will I regret? I will regret walking. I will regret slowing down just because it hurts. I'll regret just stopping because I think I can't do it, not because I actually tried and couldn't do something. So really thinking about what I will regret gave me the path. It gave me the path to what I needed to do to get to the finish line. Now, here's the other cool thing about prayer is that not only was I putting my focus on other people who I was praying for, but I had several people who I knew were praying for me. And I really drew on that energy. There were times I can remember times as I was in those last few miles. You can remember times where I was like letting both God and the other people who were praying for me know I need this, this prayer. I need the energy. And it really wasn't from this place of um, there was a time in the past where when I would think about the people who were praying for me, I would think, oh, they're gonna be so disappointed if they look at my time and see, you know, that I didn't do what I wanted to do. I don't think that way anymore at all. But what I do think about, I do think about the people who are praying for me. And what I do is I'm like, oh, I draw on that energy. They're sending me the support, the being present with me. And I called on it, the encouragement, the love, the support to be supported by something beyond just me. Because in that moment, I did not have anything else to support myself. Now I had Derek right there. I had our cheering squad. I knew Todd was on the course. I knew our other friend was in the finish line waiting for me. I knew all of that was there, and I still drew on the support from everything else around me. And that got me to the finish line. Now we're coming into the finish line, and I don't really remember all of the details because I was so focused on just getting to the line. But here's what I could hear. I could hear Corbin behind me. Corbin and his pace group were getting really close to us. And I kind of imagined that they might just swallow, swallow us up, which didn't happen. Um, but we get to the finish line and I knew I had given everything. I was not looking at my watch. I knew this is it. This is everything that I have. And as I'm crossing the finish line, there were two parts of me. There was a part of me that wanted to just cry because I knew I had, I knew I had raced below a 350. I did not know anything beyond that, but I knew I was less than 350. So I wanted to cry because I knew I had gotten that BQ time and I also wanted to just collapse. And so I did a little bit of both. There was some tears and I bent over, just kind of hunched over on my knees. Once I crossed the line, there's a great photo, it was an official finish line photo of me crossing the line, and you can see the pain in my face. Uh, I will post a link in the show notes. I'll post a link to the um The Peaceful Eater, my my newsletter over on Substack. On that post of the podcast, I will share the the finish line. Um, I'll share a couple of finish line photos. So you can go click on that and check out over on the Peaceful Eater. You can see those photos. Um, and while you're there, go ahead and sign up. If you are not already signed up for the Peaceful Eater, sign up where there I send out a newsletter every Monday, as well as the podcast episode every Wednesday. So if you would like new additional content from me, you can check that out there. I'll put a link in the show notes. So anyway, finish. I kind of reach over, I'm I'm bent over. Medical comes over to make sure I'm okay. And I tell her, I'm like, I'm okay, but I need to hug Derek first. So I hug Derek and then they both are, you know, kind of taking care of me for a while. And then we we Derek and I take a quick photo on the track at Hayward Field, and we get past um out to the athlete meeting area, and my friend Carissa comes up to me and she's screaming, You did it, you did it! And we just embrace and we both are just full of tears. She really has been one of my biggest Boston marathon inspirations. Uh, she just finished her ninth Boston Marathon this year. She and Derek ran the Boston Marathon and six days later turned around and Derek ran with me in the Eugene Marathon, and Carissa ran the first half of the marathon with Todd to help him get his time. It was so incredible. And while she was in Boston, she got me the shirt that says entering Boston. And she had it. She handed it to me. It was an amazing moment. And the last most amazing moment of the whole thing was when I finally got to see Todd. So Todd finished not too long. Oh, wait, I didn't tell you my finish time. So I didn't even know what my finish time was until we started walking away. And I looked at my watch and it was 3440. So yes, I did it. I achieved my goal. I have five minutes and 20 seconds of a buffer for Boston, and I ran sub 345, my fastest marathon ever. 22 minutes faster than this same race last year. Unbelievable. Now, the last incredible moment was when I finally got to see Todd. So he had finished. Um, and we have this reunion on the field that was incredible. Um, we just, my girlfriend took a video of us seeing each other for the first time, just in tears. We both had achieved our goals. We both had PRs, and it was just really a magical moment that was like kind of an equal magical moment in such different energy, but still so magical compared to last year's finish line moment. All right. So here's some lessons, some of my takeaway lessons that I want you to consider for yourself. So, number one, support isn't optional, it's essential. You need people in your corner. Whether we're talking about a marathon or whether we're talking about that urge to eat a lot of food or the just processing through, talking through what happens after you have eaten a lot of food and you feel awful and you can't believe you've done it again. You were not meant to do this alone. You need people in your corner. I was surrounded by people. I surrounded myself with support throughout this journey. Professional support through my coach, as well as training partners, as well as friends, my pacer, my sister, her husband, all the people. Lesson number one, support is essential. Lesson number two, you don't have to believe everything you think. That thought that says you can't, you're not enough. That's not possible. This is too hard. This will never work. That is not the truth. Awareness gives you the power to choose differently. We can't control the thoughts that come in, but we can control what we do with them once we're aware of them. Now, number three, you don't become who you want to be by staying still, by doing the same things you've always done, by staying comfortable. You grow by showing up one mile at a time, one meal at a time, one moment of looking in the mirror at a time. That's where freedom lives. It lives in the doing, the being. Who are you being? Who are you being on the journey towards whatever you want for yourself? That really is, I think, such a big lesson here. There were so many times when I really look at, there was a huge preparation component for sure of this marathon compared to last year. And the other component too is mental. What was I believing? What was I saying to myself? When those little seeds of doubt come, what do you do with them? Now, there is a kicker here. You know, you've heard me talk before. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, I talk about turning yah butt into yes and here is a perfect example of yah butt and yes and. Okay. I did run a qualifying time. And I still might not get in. There are generally more qualifiers than there are spots available. I have a buffer. It's five minutes and 20 seconds, but I don't, I will not know if that's enough until September. So here's where what I could do. I could say, yeah, but yeah, I qualified, but what if I don't get in? Yeah, but it may not be, it may not happen. And that is not what I am choosing. I am choosing yes, and yes, I did it. And I might not get in. Yes, I believe that I will. I am acting as if I am believing I will be in Boston next year. And if I don't, I'll try again next year. Yes, this moment matters. And there is uncertainty about what will happen next year, what will happen in September when it's time to register. I am not letting that future uncertainty steal any joy from today. I accomplished everything I set out to accomplish. If I wanted to let that yah but be there, I could literally let it steal my joy. Yeah, well, maybe not. So I'm gonna fully believe I'm going. And if I don't, then I'm just not meant to be there. I literally accomplished everything I did. Now, does it mean I'm not meant to be there, period, ever? No, I wouldn't have this dream if I wasn't meant to be there. Maybe it's not next year. I believe that it is, and I will continue to believe that until I know for sure in September. So that's that yes and. So here's my question for you. Where in your journey, your current journey with life, where can you shift from yeah but to yes and? Where can you honor your progress even when the outcome is still unknown? Where can you look at the gain of where you are now compared to where you were before? If you are walking your own long road, whether it's food freedom, body trust, healing from years of perfectionism, I want to remind you, you don't have to do this alone. Remember, support is essential. If you would like support from me, I would love to be a person to support you, whether it's one-on-one coaching or a swift support session, which is one session where we can do powerful work followed by seven days of additional support. We can do so much together in a brief period of time. There is support available to you when you're ready. All right, that's what I have for you today. Next week, we're gonna dive into what happens after the big moment, after the race, when the adrenaline fades, and your body asks for rest. Going after big goals is important. It's fun, it's rewarding, and it requires rest. So that's what we're gonna talk about next week. If you are a person who has a hard time resting, I identify with this. You will want to be sure to stay tuned. All right, that's what I have for you. I'll see you next week. If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you will want to be sure to follow me on Substack. There you'll find additional articles, discussion, and a library of all of the podcast episodes to help you on your journey with food. You can also access deep dive workshops and get behind the scenes audio and video that will help you understand and overcome your food struggles. Find me under the peaceful eater at janepilger.substack.com. I'll see you there.