What is it Like to Hold Hands with Meb at the Boston Marathon Finish Line?- Hilary Dionne

Meb Keflezighi crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon 2015 will go down in runner history. Business executive Hilary Dionne shares her story. Dionne works 70+ hours a week as an elite runner. Some great advice on how to be creative with workouts and running.

Does anyone remember what happened at the end of the Boston Marathon last year? Not the winners of the race, but I think most runners in America will know what I’m talking about.

Do you know what Meb Keflezighi did as he crossed the finish line? He held a surprised Elite runners hand as they ran across. That wonderful woman’s name is Hilary Dionne, and she is our special guest today!

Not only did she become an overnight celebrity, but she has an inspiring story herself.  So if you feel like you don’t have the time to get your training in, just listen to this; it may totally change your perspective.

She started out by sharing what happened at the finish line and how it made her feel. Boston 2015 was two years after the bombing, and one year after Meb became the first American to win the Marathon in years.

That wasn’t her best race: she was cramping up and getting cold. But as she was coming down Boylston Street to the finish line, she heard people cheering for Meb, and he quickly grabbed her hand right before they crossed and raised it up.

It was a crazy experience and it happened so quickly that there wasn’t really time for to to think. and she just went with it! Hillary tells me about how that one moment forever changed her perspective on the sport, and on life.

Meb Keflezighi crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon 2015 will go down in runner history. Business executive Hilary Dionne shares her story. Dionne works 70  hours a week as an elite runner. Some great advice on how to be creative with workouts and running.

Today’s topics also included:

  • How she handled her instant social media fame
  • Balancing and fitting in training during a 60 work week
  • Why you should be taking better care of yourself
  • How she keeps her stress levels low throughout it all
  • How to mix up your workouts when you’re not running
  • How Hilary pushes herself carefully through interval training

I think it really makes you appreciate that the sport has such a following and that it’s so inspirational for people in so many different ways.”

Hilary is the VP of Operations at Job Case, and it’s a pretty stressful job with really heavy hours. The big question that jumped to my mind was: “How do you fit your training in for your marathons, let alone as an Elite runner?”

Her answer was something we can all relate to, and it all comes back to balancing your time and energy. Sometimes you’re going to have to be creative to fit in your runs.

Hillary’s advice for someone who’s thinking of doing their first marathon:

Don’t second guess your training; if you have commitments and you can’t run as long as you need to, whether you added those 1 or 2 miles on that morning aren’t going to make or break your race. Don’t over analyze your training. Ideally maybe you’d spread out workouts a certain way. Don’t second guess yourself, just know that you worked as hard as you could and that circumstances come up.

There’s always going to be something and you don’t want that to be your excuse that doesn’t allow you to push as hard.

Take a person on a diet, for example: if you go a bit overboard on sweets, it won’t really harm you if you only do it once. But if you just give up and say: “Well, why even try?”, then you’ve wasted all of your previous efforts. So, consistency is key here.

As long as you’re doing the best you can with the situation in which you are at this moment, that’s all you can ask of yourself. That’s how Hillary approaches her training: she’s flexible and doesn’t beat herself up. If she can do it, so can you!

She’s a weekend warrior in a way, which means she gets a lot of training done on the weekend. Initially that got a lot of bad press, but we have an article where we discussed the research, and they found that it wasn’t that bad. Check it out! She tells us more about her experience with this method of training.

Reset your goals and your expectations and don’t allow yourself to become disappointed when you make mistakes, because those are your opportunities for growth and learning.

Quotes:

To some extent I think I need running to function.”

You make it work.”

[bctt tweet=”Wonder what it is like to hold hands with Meb at the finish? Listen to this @Runners_Connect #Podcast!” via=”no”]

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I’m so excited and I can barely believe that we’re already at Episode 99, and for Episode 100, we have a fantastic giveaway to celebrate! So make sure you stay tuned for that.

We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top. Please consider giving us a review on iTunes by clicking THIS link. You can follow this YouTube Video of a Demonstration of How to Leave a Review. Thank you in advance.

Tell us how you juggle your work and training in the comments below!

Links and resources:

Craft Concept Racing

Level Renner magazine

Luna Bars

Craft Wind Breaker

Hillary’s Twitter

The Shocking Truth About Weekend Warrior Fitness Gains

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