Boston marathon

So, I'm in Germany! But I'm here to talk about Boston.

Last Monday was Patriot's Day in the Boston area, also known as the day of the Boston marathon. Someone asked me why I would ever fly up the country to run 26 miles, but the point is that this is probably the most historic and arguably the greatest marathon in the world. Part of its reputation comes from the fact that you have to qualify: I qualified for this race last year with a 3:08:30 at the Georgia marathon, a couple minutes under the standard of 3:10:59 for my gender and age group, and once I determined that I would be able to fit it into my schedule, I signed up for the 2009 Boston marathon.

The marathon was on Monday, but Heather (who flew over from California to spectate the marathon and enjoy the weekend with me) and I came in on Saturday so that we could check out the city, which I had never visited before. However, sight-seeing was a secondary goal: more important was to meet up with a bunch of different friends who either lived in the Boston area or were coming for the marathon. And we made some new friends for free, too.

First stop was Cambridge where we met up with the venerable Matt Sullivan, originally of Grinnell but now about to finish a law degree at Harvard. We walked around Harvard square and the campus and ate at a local pizza joint, where I got a little greedy with the parmesan cheese.




We then met up with the people we were to stay with: Kelly, Molly, Kaitlin, Josh, and John, where John is an old friend and fellow Grinnell HS 2003 graduate, but all of the other people we had never met before. Let me explain this graph theoretically: with a vertex for each of the 7 of us, and edges representing "friends before last week," you would have a clique of Kelly-Molly-Kaitlin, a clique of Kaitlin-Josh-John, and edges of John-me and Heather-me, but nothing else. So for example there were 4 degrees of separation between Heather and Kelly or Molly. But we made friends quickly—it was a great group to spend most of the weekend with! And Kelly was an amazing host—she took great care of us in her big house out in North Andover, including a big pasta meal the night before the race.

We got a quick picture of the three Grinnelleans as we left Matt and joined John's group.


First thing to do was to check in to the race, get our bib numbers, and visit the race expo (basically a crowded room of people roaming around for free energy foods and stuff like that).
Outside the expo was the finish line! We stopped to pose with our new shirts.
Here are the Boston racers in our group: Josh, Kaitlin, John, and me.



For the rest of that day and the next, we explored Boston. I'll just show photos.

The three Brown grads (Kaitlin, Kelley, Molly) in the Public Garden


MIT sailing club (?) on the Charles in front of MIT

MIT

Gehry-designed house at MIT

This is cool: the woman's clothes mimic the building :)


Later that night, Heather, Josh, John, and I had been wandering in the Italian quarter for a while and looking for a certain bar that we never found…and were starting to get cold…so we ended up in some random hotel lobby where they didn't mind us being hobos and hanging out by their fake-log fire. It was so nice.


The next day, in Beacon Hill, enjoying the cute houses, gas streetlamps, flower boxes, and nice day.



A perfect day in the Public Garden.


On Sunday, we also got a chance to meet up with CMS running legends Reed Lyon, Carl Rossi, and Dave Juiliano for a quick lunch. Reed and Carl were running the marathon, and Reed was going for a pretty impressive time… man, that guy has turned into a running geek, and a really fast one at that. (He ended up racing something like 2:33, good for top 100.)

Then, that evening, we were back to North Andover for a big delicious dinner and a good night's sleep.

Finally, Patriot's Day arrived. Kelley drove us all down to Boston Common where we racers split off to get on buses headed out to Hopkinton, the start of the race. Carl Rossi had told me the day before that I'd see every last yellow school bus in Massachusetts down in Boston Common on Monday morning, and he wasn't kidding.


I'll share photos first, and then talk about the race. Many of these are thanks to Heather, who was spectating at about the 24 mile mark.
Elite females

Here's my crowd. See if you can spot my butt.

Here are some official race photos. Sorry for the "Proof" thing, but I am too cheap (well, rather, they are too expensive) to buy the full versions.
Before the race in the Athlete's Village


Finish line. I started at 4:something, so the time is a few minutes off.

Post-finish. Like after my last marathon, I take no responsibility for facial expressions after the race. I was mostly unconscious at this moment, but also sooooo relieved.


OK, so about the race: it was tough!! After "crashing" very badly around mile 21 of the Georgia marathon I was hoping to avoid this at Boston by running more smartly. Well, I did a better job of keeping my pace and exertion level down in the first half of Boston, and I still felt really good around the half-marathon mark. But it was no use: I still crashed, probably at around the same distance as GA. In fact, in terms of "how I felt" at different points during and after the race, Boston turned out to be almost exactly the same as Georgia. By the way, the hills that we encountered in the town of Newton between miles 17-21 were annoying, and that was the place I started crashing, but in all seriousness the hills were not that bad. The infamous Heartbreak Hill in particular was not at all distinctive—in fact, it seemed like the previous hills were bigger and tougher. But even so, the hills and the distance together conspired to make my quads want to stop working around mile 19 and it just got worse from there. The last few miles, I was half-unconscious and the main thing that kept me going was the idea of getting the race over with. It helped a little that the crowds cheering on the runners in downtown Boston were supportive and LOUD!

Anyway, I made it. My final time: 3:11:01, a few minutes slower than my Georgia time. The time is also notable in that it made me exactly 2 seconds from re-qualifying for Boston! I was fine with this, though, especially because I'm planning to retire from marathons for at least a few years. This race convinced me that my body is not the kind of body for which marathons are a healthy activity.

In any case, I was obviously extremely exhausted after the race, and it took about 10 minutes just to feel fully conscious again. However, I was so happy to be done. And I had some great people around to take care of me. :-)

Heat blankets for just-finished runners.

Bags of warm-ups that were brought from Hopkinton, sorted by bib number in buses

Exhausted…supported…and happy to be done :-)

The finishers