Because of a recent family crisis, I wasn't supposed to be doing this race, and my head certainly wasn't in it. My CR and Mudfest times suggested I might be able to PR by a decent margin, but I had barely run at all in the past two weeks and felt totally wrung out My wife Betsy convinced me to attend the PCVRC Boston send-off Wed. night, and Fri. evening we finally got a chance to run together, and she convinced me to actually go. Some close friends were sceptical about my going, and I had my own doubts, but it was time to trust that things would be okay without me. My parents and sister live in Providence, so Boston Marathon is a great excuse to get up there and visit them. I was particularly eager to see my dad, who has had a tough year. Being a New Englander at heart, I love Boston itself; I went to college there and know it pretty well. And if God gives you the opportuntiy to run the Boston Marathon, you should do it if you possibly can. So after my daughters' soccer game and then Bob's dad's funeral on Saturday (which was very well attended by Dawgs and hashers), I headed up to Providence and got a great welcome from my parents and their rowdy dogs. I didn't have any time goal at all for this race.
Sunday my mom insisted on driving me up to Hynes Convention Ctr. in downtown Boston for packet pickup, my dad riding shotgun with the seat all the way back because he's still recovering from a fractured vertebra (from being knocked over by the dogs in January). The Boston Marathon expo is about as big as a marathon expo can get, but I made it through the whole thing in 45 minutes while they sat in a no-parking zone on Boylston St. The Adidas poster had every runner's name on it, like last year's, and Grete Waitz was signing them, but she had signed my poster last year so I skipped the autograph line. I came upon the Ocean State Marathon booth and signed up for that--Oct. 13, all in Providence this year. The street closures for race setup created a classic Boston traffic jam, and it took an extra hour to get back to Providence. Sunday afternoon I visited with my sister. She is a doctor in Providence, like that Melissa Kanakarides character only way cooler. When she was in medical school in 1976 she ran NY Marathon when there were only about 100 women doing the race. She hasn't done much running since, but she's still fit and I'm trying to get her to do Ocean State with me this fall.
Monday morning I read about Khannouchi's new world record and Radcliffe's great run at the London Marathon. My parents took me up to Hopkinton, about 35 minutes up I-95 and I-495. The state police had closed off the I-495 exits to Hopkinton, so I walked into town from the exit ramp. The weather was supposed to be humid with temperatures in the high 70's, but Hopkinton was still foggy and cool. I looked for the DE Sports Club bus by the hardware store but didn't find it. I saw Deborah Compton, looked for Dave McCorquodale. I took my bag to the school bus, then got in my starting corral with 15 minutes to spare and chatted with a couple of perennial bandits who have yet to make it to the finish line. The mood was somewhat more subdued than last year. There were several Koreans in my corral, and some Korean flags around reflecting national pride in Lee Bong-Ju's win last year. We sang the Star Spangled Banner and I felt amazed to even be there. The ropes between the corrals came down, the pack moved forward and the gun went off.
Boston's start is pretty well-designed. The starting chute is a lot narrower than the road, so once you cross the starting line the pack thins out immediately and you can run pretty freely. The first mile on Rt. 135 includes a big downhill, so it's really tempting to crank up the pace immediately. I made a conscious effort to keep it slow, not worry about time, stay hydrated. Patriot's Day is a state holiday in Massachusetts, so there is good crowd support the entire 26.2 miles. Every bar and restaurant along the way is packed. Especially with the fog, I had to remind myself that it was early afternoon, not morning. There are enough runners that you don't see the water stations until you're on top of them, but there was always a water station on the left a few hundred yards beyond each water station on the right. We ran past the biker bar, past so many people barbequeing various kinds of meat in their front yards that I got sick of the smell ("Beef. It's what's rotting in your colon."), past a couple of bands on rooftops in Ashland and Framingham, crowds of people outside restaurants and shops, the train station, the meditation center, thousands of kids offering oranges, kids with their hands out for a high-five. Then into Natick, with another big crowd in the center of town. Into Wellesley with the usual gauntlet of screaming girls from the college, the halfway point in 1:37:11 (chip), then onto Rt. 16 in the center of town. I tried to stick to a 7:20 pace or so, feeling pretty comfortable, just taking it all in. The fog burned off. I ran with Theresa Cannon for a while, did a couple of gels and some banana, took a cup or two at every water station.
Over the Charles and Rt. 128, past the hospital and country club and Newton Fire Station. This is where the work begins. Last year I had stomach problems around mile 16 and really struggled through the last 10 miles with no water. I really left it all on the road in that race, and when my mom saw me at the finish, dehydrated and wobbly and semi-incoherent, she reacted like a typical mom and wanted to call an ambulance. But this year I felt fine right through the Newton hills. These hills come on gradually, and aren't any worse than the stuff we run around here, but the rolling up-and-down gets stressful after so many miles of level ground. The published course elevation profile does not represent this part of the course very accurately. I remembered watching the marathoners on Heartbreak Hill in the rain in 1975, my last year in college, when I had given up my career in combat sports (football, wrestling, lax) but still thought running was punishment and distance running was utterly weird.
The sun was out, and I slowed to a 7:50 pace, did the Heartbreak Hill mile in 8:30, and picked up the pace to about 7:50 again past Boston College and the reservoir. Then I started running out of gas. I regretted not having extended my longest training runs to 23+ miles. Despite my slow start, I was actually still on track to break my time from last year, but I reminded myself that I had already had two really good races this year and shouldn't get greedy, this race was a gift, already better than I deserved. So I laid back a little in the final miles on Beacon St., soaked in the crowd, watched the big Citgo sign get nearer, got a peek at the ball game underway inside Fenway Park (the Sox beat the Yanks), watched for the final right and left turns off Commonwealth onto Boylston and pushed it a bit to the finish. This one hurt just the right amount. I finished in 3:24:53 gun time, 3:21:33 chip time, less than a minute off last year's chip time--not too shabby for a 48-year-old guy who wasn't supposed to be there at all. I even beat John McKenzie, age 48 from Greenfield, MA, who was half a minute ahead of me last year. There was a nice breeze at the finish. Overall we really lucked out on the weather. Margaret Okayo beat Catherine Ndereba in 2:20:43, topping Uta Pippig's old Boston record. Rodgers Rop won the men's race in 2:09:02.
I got my own chip off, collected my medal, snack bag and clothes, chatted with some guy from Maine, refueled, rehydrated and got dressed, then headed for the Berkeley St. subway station. The T was mobbed, but the ride was free. My parents had wisely decided to avoid the finish area this year, so I took the red line from Park St. out to Ashmont, and the trolley extension to Milton. A lady on the trolley saw the marathon bag and told me she had run Flying Pig in Cincinnatti and was doing it again in 3 weeks. I completely missed the Milton stop while we talked about marathons, so I rode back in to Milton from Mattapan and was still early. My parents picked me up there about 15 minutes later. Back to Providence, shower, dinner at a nice seafood restaurant with my parents and a good night's sleep before the drive back to Newark Tuesday morning. God bless cruise control! I got home Tuesday in time to pick my daughters up from school and read some nice e-mails from Dawgs and other friends. I had an easy run at Carpenter Wed. afternoon, and by Thursday the stiffness was gone.
It is back to day-to-day again. Pittsburgh looks doubtful, so Stewart may be doing that one on his own. Vermont is probably a go since the whole family is coming along, and my brother will probably take his first shot at a Boston qualifier (3:20).