Qualifying for the Boston marathon is a serious undertaking.

Somehow the depth of the challenge was lost on me growing up — my dad was the type who could qualify for Boston on a weekend's notice. His hidden shrine of exotic race medals, partially colored by the Boston yellow and blue, seemed commonplace on the wall of our basement storage room. "They're just finisher medals," a younger me thought. "It's not like he even won."

Face-palm. I am appalled at the disrespect.

After 19 weeks of consistent training to qualify for the Boston marathon, my body is beginning to understand.

Hunger: I've been forced to introduce both brunch and linner as extra meals into my diet.

Fatigue: I've developed a disgust for public stairs.

Pain: Being blessed with my father's VO2 max only makes hill day suck moderately less.

Self-doubt: What if I crack at mile 20?

This first-ever training cycle has given me perspective on the challenge that is training for Boston, and it's led me to discover several items that have made the journey less frustrating and more fun.

For every woman who's ever considered trying to qualify for Boston, here are 9 items that dramatically improved my training experience:

1. Pre-Run Fruit Snacks

To anyone else, these look like adult fruit snacks. But trust me: these squishy nuggets are for serious athletes. I typically only eat these before long runs or speed workouts. And they're somewhat of a choking hazard for me when I try to eat them mid-run. These probably won't replace your classic runner gels. But for someone who isn't crazy about sucking goo, these fruit snacks offer something chewable.

2. Heating Corn

When I injured my IT band, I started seriously investigating the tension in my hip. But I could hardly pinpoint what or where the problem was. My hip was this dark, unexplorable cave.

That was the case until I coupled heating with stretching. I own a heating bean bag that somehow has corn inside instead of beans — thus, the "heating corn." After applying 15 minutes of hot corn, the hip cave suddenly becomes explorable! I heat one hip for 15 minutes, do a series of hip rotation stretches, then switch sides. Thanks to the corn, I can more dexterously stretch specific hip muscles instead of feeling the whole hip as a monolith of tension.

3. Heart Rate Chest Strap

Whether my chest strap actually records more accurate heart rate data than my Apple watch, I'm still uncertain. But what I do know is that wearing a heart rate monitor makes me feel like the "serious athlete" that my husband says I am. It seems like my mind is slower getting on board with my athletic dreams than my body. (Which I'll admit is quite the opposite for most other people I know, so maybe I'm lucky.) By wearing the chest strap, I've fooled myself into believing that I already am the thing that I'm trying to achieve — a real competitive runner.

4. Athletic Cupping Set

As I said, I injured my IT band. I thought I would have to spend a couple hundred at the PT trying to heal the thing. But purchasing a $25 cupping set off Amazon brought the treatment to my living room at a fraction of the price. Cupping mixed with YouTube-inspired rehab exercises has given me a passable equivalent to the treatment I would have sought out at a clinic.

Apparently the science behind cupping is moderately unconvincing, but anecdotally, cupping works like a charm. I can add my story to that anecdotal evidence. Cupping has felt awesome. And I'm healed now! So be it causational or correlational, I can't tell for sure. But if I get injured again, I will 100% be cupping myself just in case.

5. Shorts without a Tie that Gets Stuck

I wish I could relieve myself before a run and have my bowels behave until I get home. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work like that for me.

To gain confidence that I wouldn't lose too much time during a mid-race stop, I rehearsed my bathroom breaks throughout training. And I discovered that nothing ruins a bathroom time trial like the drawstring on my shorts getting stuck.

I cannot stand the kind of tie that's just a single elastic band going around the waist. It refuses to come undone, and I spend the first 30 seconds of my bathroom time trial just trying to pick the knot! So I've purchased a pair of shorts with a tie that looks more like shoe laces — the kind where you pull one loose end of the bow and the whole knot unravels. Speed knot. You can also get shorts or leggings without any tie, and I bet those would do the same trick for speedy bathroom stops. For whatever reason I like the ties, but I can't sacrifice two whole minutes of race time because my shorts won't untie!

6. Fuel Pouch

Besides the drawstring fiasco, most female athletic bottoms also don't have the pocket capacity for three gels and a pack of Run Gum. Most of my shorts can barely hold my car key. So if you plan to carry more than 100 calories on race day, a fuel pouch is critical.

Sure, the aid stations offer oranges and gels at key mile marks, but with Boston in my sights, I personally am not willing to trust my fueling fate to anyone else. My solution: a cheapo fuel pack off Amazon. I specifically picked one I'd be willing to toss mid-course if the extra 0.5 pounds became burdensome in the final leg of the race (haha). But ultimately, I kept it on through the finish line. Pro tip: if your pack is too bouncy around your hips, I recommend the crossbody method.

7. Tennis Ball

If you're training to be competitive, you probably already have a foam roller. And it's probably somewhat painful to roll out after hard workouts. So you will likely hate suggestion number 7, but I recommend it anyway. Try rolling out on a tennis ball, specifically on your hips, calves, and foot arch. For me, a tennis ball gives a more directed deep tissue massage, which I need to avoid injury.

8. Callus Scrubber

As long as I can remember, my feet have been callused. For a runner, calluses are a blessing — until they get thick enough to hurt. E.g. my exact experience. I know foot problems are gross enough to be taboo, but everything about running marathons is brutally humanizing. So if you share my foot problem, know there's someone out here who understands and wants to hear all the nasty details about your feet!

The solution for my thick calluses was a multi-purpose foot file. Mine has four sides with different textured faces. And I use all four to rip on my calluses. Not only have I solved my problem, but my feet have never been so soft. Contrary to my previous belief, you can have nicely pedicured feet and still run fast. They're not mutually exclusive!

9. A Mantra You Believe In

I probably would not have pushed myself hard enough to qualify during training without a mantra. And I absolutely would not have survived the race without one. If you can find a phrase that resonates with you, it will do tons for your psychological toughness. Here are the mantras I used.

"Learning grit. Going to Boston." About the middle of my training, I coined this phrase because it reconnected my suffering with my goal. While huffing and puffing through 800 repeats, this phrase reminded me that each stride was growing my capacity for grit. During the race, I changed the mantra to "Showing grit. Going to Boston." The change implied that I had already learned the grit necessary to succeed, now I just had to show it.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer." This second mantra, which I only used on race day, was coined by the author of Dune, Frank Herbert. At the beginning of the race, I didn't want to fear how I would feel later in the race. This mantra dispelled anxious thoughts like "What if my IT band flares up?" and "What's going to happen when I hit the wall?" Repeating this phrase reminded me not to give fear a power source. It kept me from manifesting unnecessary negativity into reality.

Conclusion

To all female, novice runners flirting with the idea of competitive racing: Do it.

There will be pain. There will be hunger. There will be groggy 5 ams.

And there will be an unparalleled reward at the finish line. I hope a few of these items can help you get there. Can't wait to race with you in Boston.