2011 Boston Marathon

I might as well get this report written while it’s still fresh in my mind.

As you know, my training for this race was what I have referred to as “gentle”, meaning I simply logged time on my feet without paying attention to mileage or attempting any type of speedwork, aside from running hills. Going into this training cycle I was feeling burnt out after three back-to-back marathon cycles. All I could think about was getting this darn race over and done with so that I could get back to enjoying running again instead of “working” for it all the time. Not the best attitude to drag along but that’s definitely how I felt. The only reason I decided to actually run Boston was because so many people make such a big deal over this particular race and I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. I actually decided to make this my last road marathon before transitioning over to trail running which has become a new challenge for me.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend from beginning to end. My family decided to make the trip to Boston with me, it would be a first trip to this city for all four of us. We spent Saturday afternoon at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, caught some street performances and had a bite at Salty Dog, my first visit to this particular chain. It was very cold and windy, not ideal for tourists, and we headed back to the hotel in Waltham to relax before I went back downtown to attend the Runner’s World Party that evening.

Living a couple miles from the Runner’s World Headquarters does have it’s advantages, mainly because I’ve gotten to become friends with several of the famous RW folk which is how I landed the invite. Runner’s World knows how to throw a party. While I did not spot any of the elite runners who would be racing on Monday as I expected to see, there was a Josh Cox sighting as well as past Boston winners which was fun. But mostly, I hung out with my friends, enjoyed some food and drink, meanwhile my car was racking up the dollar signs in the parking garage a few hundred feet away. ($22 for 3 hours of parking? This is why I will never be a city girl.)

Sunday was my day to hit the expo with my soon-to-be 7 year old daughter in tow. My husband and younger daughter scored some great Red Sox tickets and would be enjoying the afternoon at Fenway Park. Now, I love a good expo and this is supposed to be a good one so I was pretty excited. I barely lasted an hour in there. It was so crowded I feared that I would lose my daughter, people were rude and pushy, and all I could think about was getting out of there. I did want to make one stop at the GoMotion booth to meet Jonathan Craig, owner and founder. I’ve been speaking with Jonathan via email for the last year and am a huge fan of his products. I’ve successfully talked my local running stores into carrying his products for other area runners to purchase. I use my GoMotion Litebelt on all of my pre-dawn runs; don’t know what I’d do without it. It was a great honor to finally meet Jonathan in person.

Jonathan Craig, GoMotion

Other that that, I quickly made my way through the expo, stopped at the RW and Saucony booths to say hi to my friends and then made my obligatory official marathon apparel purchase before meeting up with my friend, Chris, for a bite to eat before we headed out to the finish line area for some photo ops.

Sunday evening my daughter and I joined Chris’s group for dinner as we were all staying at the same hotel. They had rented a tour bus for the weekend from back home. I’d be taking the bus with them the next morning to the starting area of the race.

Sunday morning the bus departed at 6:30 am sharp and we made our way to Hopkinton where we stayed at a home (friend of the bus trip organizer) before heading to the starting line. I have to say, that was a great treat. We were able to relax comfortably instead of freezing our butts in Athlete’s Village. At 10am I threw my bag into the bus window and walked to the starting line, easily hopped into my corral and less than five minutes later the race started.

While it was cold and windy on that walk to the starting line, a mile into the race I ditched my arm sleeves and felt the hot sun already. I knew things weren’t going to go as smoothly as I’d hoped when in mile 3 I was thinking “I’m only at mile 3? This is going to be a long day.” I was not following a pace, didn’t have my Garmin – why should I? I haven’t trained with it all winter, why frustrate myself with it on race day? I kept my breathing easy and comfortable and that was how I paced myself. Before the start I was trying to figure out whether or not to carry my water bottle, I ended up carrying it, though in this race the water stops were consistent and predictable and you didn’t necessarily need to carry anything.

By the time I made it to the 10k mark I was really feeling the heat. I continued to run by feel and keep my breathing in check, avoiding being pulled along by all of the people who were passing me and believe me, there were a lot of people passing me. That’s the problem with running a race that you need to qualify for in order to enter; everyone is good. And I was seeded in the 12,xxx corral based on my 3:32:xx Pocono finishing time from a year ago. Everyone else around me was running that kind of predicted pace but I was shooting for slower than that.

The heat was bad. Sure, we might have had a tail wind but that did absolutely nothing to cool me off as the sun beat down on me. I had a nice sunburn later that day. So, my core body temperature was heating up more and more and all of the liquids I was taking in were not cooling me down, neither was that tail wind. At 10 miles I was feeling worse. At 15 miles I happily took the icee that some little girl handed me, I said thank you about a million times to her. I stopped at a water stop to grab a gatorade, knowing that I needed to replenish my salt. I stopped, chatted with the volunteer for a sec, and turned around to watch the runners as I enjoyed that lemon-lime goodness. At that point I knew it was all about the experience and my finish time did not matter. I wanted to soak in Boston.

Let me interject here about the crowds. From beginning to end, there was not one spot along those 26.2 miles where no one stood to cheer on runners. The residents of Massachusetts were out in full force yelling and screaming, offering words of encouragement, slapping hands and handing out food and drinks along the way. One question: what was up with all of that licorice everyone was handing out?? I have never seen so much licorice being handed out along a marathon course. The screaming college girls in front of Wellesley were incredible. They all held hilarous signs, offered free kisses to anyone and everyone. I giggled the whole way past them. Another key point about Wellesley – that was the ONLY shady portion of the race, and it felt oh! so good!

Back to my struggles on the course. I hit the half marathon point and though I was feeling pretty beat up already I noticed that my time wasn’t nearly as bad as I felt. About 20 minutes later I heard a runner near me, cell phone in hand, announce that a world record was just broken by the elites. I thought … “oh my god, I’m only half way done and they’re already finished.” and “what is this guy doing running and checking his cell phone?“

I found my family standing along the course around mile 17.5. I had already walked some water stations and a couple times along the course at that point, heat exhaustion was creeping in. I was dizzy, so light-headed, in fact, I feared I’d fall over a couple of times. And my stomach was starting to feel nautious. Stopping to walk was also causing some GI issues. Ugh! I still had a far way to go. I couldn’t even calculate how many more miles I had to go, I was so delirious. I stopped to say hi and hug my family before turning the corner (one of the only ones on the course) and climbing the hills in Newton.

I was right in that these hills were exactly the same kind of hills I have at home. The same kind of hills I run regularly on pretty much all of my runs. I had already been battling the early onslought of heat exhaustion for a few miles and I walked every single one of those hills. That slowed my time down considerably. After seeing my splits that were sent to me by the B.A.A. I can recognize the hills and my walking pretty easily.

The last eight miles of the race are a blur of me walking and running, grabbing ice cubes, water, gatorade, glancing around at the thousands of runners who continued to pass me, hearing the crowds around me, seeing hands thrust in front of my face for me to slap hands with (every time I did, all I could think of was “germs.) I was feeling beat up but instead of being hard on myself, instead of feeling upset that I had missed my goal of running a 3:50:00 or less, instead of even caring about my time, I just tried to soak it all up, the whole experience. I hit mile 25 and told myself, no more walking. I had to run the rest of this race. No excuses. A right turn. Someone slaps me on the back. Left onto Boyleston and I see the finish line. It’s still far enough away that this really, really hurts. I’m moaning and dizzy and all I want to do is puke. I thought I was going to a few different times over the last few miles. And then there I am, at last, standing under the finish sign. 4:17:30. Wow! My worst marathon time ever, quite possibly my worst race experience, ever. The second time I’ve raced with heat exhaustion. I was so glad to be done.

Despite this being such a rough race for me, I think that this event was top notch from beginning to end. It didn’t hurt that I got a little extra special treatment that weekend in the form of a RW Party invite, a comfortable home to stay in before the race, and a private tour bus to travel in to and from the race. Despite the expo being a pushy, crowded experience, the bib and shirt pickup was so smooth and I actually got a shirt that fits perfectly! That is a huge accomplishment in itself. Free transportation on the “T” after the race was just one more bonus and proof that Massachusetts stands behind this event. I would highly encourage every runner who runs a Boston Qualifying Time to run this race at least once. The course is great, the landscape is beautiful, and it’s well organized from beginning to end.

I have no desire to run Boston again. Veni, vidi, vici. I am so over the marathon. Four marathons are definitely enough for me. I can’t say that I will never run another marathon in my lifetime because I have no idea what will happen in the future. I may have that desire again down the road. But for the immediate future, I have absolutely no desire to do so. I’d rather stick to shorter races, and continue to run more trails. More than anything, I want to enjoy running and for now, that means just going out there and having fun with my friends on the trails.