Boston Bound

It's the morning of the Boston, and I am in the lobby of the Westin.  Last night we had a great dinner with Gil and his family at a old Italian restaurant (Cantina Italiana) in the North End neighborhood of Boston.  That classic Italian neighborhood was jam-packed with people in Boston for the marathon.  With the warm weather, the restaurants had their front windows removed, and people had tables on rooftops and patios. 

I need to get to the Boston Commons to meet Gil, and the plan is to take the a combination of buses and and trains on the Boston MBTA public transit line.  Not a big deal, but I hear that the hotel is running a free shuttle bus.  Less walking, so I wait for that.  The street where they line up school buses to take us out to Hopkinton is packed, and so is the park.  Gil and I exchange a few texts, and while I am waiting for him, I see someone in a Palos Half-marathon shirt from the first year they ran it.  I ran Boston 2009 wearing that shirt.  It is Ken, from the Park Forest Club.  I knew he had run Boston before, but I wasn't aware he had qualified this year.  We both get calls from people meeting us, so we shake quickly and exhange good wishes for the race.
Gil shows up, and within 5 minutes, and 2 busloads, we are heading to Hopkinton.  Each time I have run Boston, getting on these buses has gone smoothly.  In less than an hour, we are pulling up to the high school in Hopkinton where they set up the pre-race waiting area called "Athlete's Village".  It is quite an array of tents and porta-potties, and decorations, with giveways from shoe vendors, fod and coffee, music and lots of excitement. 
In past years, staying warm in the early morning dew soaked grass was caled for.  This year, by 8 am you can already feel the sun on the sidewalks and walls of the school, so the shade under the big top tent is the welcome.  There are always and interesting array of people around, but this is the first time I haven't seen anyone else from the Park Forest running club here at the start.  Even with over 2 hours to wait, there is not a lot of time not filled with getting food, waiting in line for a porta-pottie, taking pictures, or taking stock of things like gel packs to take on the run. 
Because the Boston start is on a narrow country road, and space is limited in Hopkinton, they let out three waves of runners - we are in wave 2, and will start at 10:20 am.  Each wave has 9 corrals of 1000 runners each, ranked by qualifying times.  So, in the 13000-13999 corral, people range from a 3:25:00 to a 3:35:00 qualifying time.  The first wave has actually started by the time we stow our gear bags on designated buses to be shipped back to Boston.

The mood is electric with anticiaption as a steady stream of marathoners walk about a half-mile to Main street in Hopkinton.  It is about 10:15 by the time we get to Corral 5.  We just have time to have someone take a picture of us before we hear the gun for our start.  There is the usual ebb and flow of a big race start before we cross the starting mat, and maybe 2 minutes pass before our chips get triggered.  The pace quickly picks up, because it is pretty pronounced downhill start.  The road is narrow, but the runners move quickly, because we are so precisley seeded by proven qualifying times.  The crowds may not be as thick as Chicago, because there is not as much room, but they are cheering appropriately loud for this special event. 

The pace does not seem too fast - I notice my watch is set to minutes per kilometers from the last time I did speedwork.  We are going about 5:10-5:20  minutes per km, and i fgure that is close to a 8:00 - 8:30, which is about 1 minute faster than we want to go.  Sure enough, at Mile 1, we see 8:23.   We try to stay at an easy pace, the gravity, the thick stream of runners and excitement carries us.  The second mile brigs us past a roadhouse with lots of Harleys in the lot.  Some Heavy Metal is blaring, and they have a Sam Adams 26.2 flag flying. 

Even in this country setting on the outkirts of Hopkinton, there is rarely a spot without people on the side cheering us on.  We get to the 5K mat, and I am glad that my time is not faster than Laura's 5K time yesterday.  That's what happened in 2010, and I knew my pace was too fast.   We are still at under the 9 minute pace we wanted.  We are getting close to 11 am, and losing the shade.  The pace makes us feel the heat, and we take fluids at all the official stops which are not real frequent in the fist few miles, but then show up every mile or 2 afterwards. 

The town of Ashland comes out in force to see us, and it is great to have the crowds.  We have a groupe of people that we leapfrog as we go from mile to mile, and we trade observations and encouragement.  Gil is just floating along on the experience, and it makes it all fresh for me too.  In the next town, Framingham, I see a long gray pony tail, hanging in front of a shirt that says "Frogger 26.2"  It's Dave "Frogger" Mauger, from the Park Forest Running club.  I jump ahead of him while he slows for water, and I take my phone out to take his picture.  He gives me a high five as he runs by, and surges ahead.  He qualifies with a slower time than me, but he always does much better in Boston than I do. 

Gil is real interactive with the crowd, and wants to take whatever little kids are handing out, oranges, candy, water.  I appreciate the support, but I am a little more selective taking food from nonofficial people without gloves.  Somewhere in the first 10 miles, Gil mentions the heat.   The temps are in the 80's now.  The wind is mostly behind us, so you do not feel the cooling effect.  I had carried a baggie with me, and I go up to some guys with a cooler on a lawn, and get some ice.  I put some in my hat, and tell Gil to put some on his neck.  Your skin does the job of a radiator, using evaporation to cool off.  But at acertain effort and temperature, your body will not be able to cool down quick enough.  The issue is not the skin temperatrue, but your body's core temperature, which affects the internal organs and the brain.  Pouring 8 ounces of 40 degree water into ot on a 160 lb, six foot body mass  will not have a discernible effect;  immersing your self in cold water will, but we don't have time for that.  So, the best way to cool your core body temp with ice, is to put it on the major arteries and veins: carotid in the neck, axillary under the arm, and femoral in your leg.  So, the ice bag goes on the side of your neck, and the blood gets cooled as it leaves/returns the heart.  (note to self:  invent running shirt with pockets under arms for ice packs. ) 

Our 10K time is close to a 9 minute pace overall, so we are slowing down.  Gil has taken to running through every sprinkler and hose he can.  I know that the soggy clothes and shoes can weigh you down and cause blisters and chafing, plus I am carrying my phone, so I stay out of the direct spray.  But on these narrow roads, there is sometimes no avoiding it.  Every town's fire department has some sort of cooling device, and there are misting tents, hydrants opened up.  Eventually, I get Gil to hold my phone while I run through.  After running Chicago and 2007 and 2008  in 90 and low 80 degree heat, I know that 80-82 is my limit for actually "running" a marathon.  But that was a 7 am start, and the flat Chicago course.  This race started close to 10:30 am, and the course is notoriously hilly.  I know that I will have to scale back, so it is agood thing we are not pushing for time.  Gil wants to take a bathroom break around mile 10, so I take that opportunity to make more room for fluids.  Natick is a cool town, and we pass St. Patrick's church  right at noon while the bells are ringing. 

Gil has a habit on long runs of going into a sideways "carioca" skip.  He says it helps him stay stretched.  It is both inpiring and demoralizing.  He has an utter joy for running, but while I am struggling to keep up our pace just going one foot in front of the other, he is going sidways at the same speed - Really?!    So Gil starts breaking into his sideways shuflfe-step about once every  mile or 2 , as we go by a band that's playing or some kids.  I actually egg him on at times, like when we go by a store with mirrored windows with a sign that says "Check out your form".  He did the same thing during the Fox Valley Marathon when we qualified for Boston.

We are doing okay, but making sure we check our fluids, and take some gels every 45-60 minutes.    We come towards the halfway point and go by the famous Wellesley 'scream tunnel'. The girls are offering kisses, and holding up signs, saying 'Kiss me, I'm Italian'.  'Kiss me, I'm liberal'.  I am running by slapping hands and ytelling back, and then stopping to kiss the girls with the more clever signs.  (I believe there must have been at least one guy, because Gil read off a sign that said "Guys Need Kisses too."  Okay, just not from me.    The last person in the line was a post-middleaged guy in full Indian headress with a sign that said "Kiss Me, I'm Red Cloud"  That was wrong on several levels, and spoiled the image.

It was well  into the afternoon, and the bigger towns like Framingham and Wellesley brought wider, sunnier streets with more heated-up concrete, and less shade.  At times we picked up the pace, or hit a hill, i could feel my heart raxcing, and would ease up.  This was my 13th marathon, and I have made it to the starting line and the finish line of every one, and I was not going to break that streak today.  Yes, it was hot, but the diverse crowd of runners and the spectacle of the spectators, cheering us on, offering refreshments, and spraying us with hoses kept it fun.  I started to see people getting medical attention on the side, ambulances and gurneys.  In my past 2 Bostons, I  had seen a few runners pull up with strains and sprains, but these were people that semed to have dehydration/heat exhaustion issues.  It was still a long way to see Teresa and Laura, and first we had to go up Heartbreak Hill.

At 88 feet, Heartbreak is not that very tall of a hill.  But it comes between mile 20 and 21, and is the fourth of the "Newton Hills"  which begin at mile 16.  With the long descent at the beginning of the race, those hills seem all that much magnified, esepcailly coming that late in the race, with your legs already shot. 
The first year I ran Boston, I did nto walk on the hills.  The second time, I tried to run most of the time, but I know I walked a little on one of them.  This year, I knew that I had to walk up these hills.  My "run" was not much more than a shuffle, and if I kept at that for more than a few minutes on the hills, I my chest punded and I got lightheaded.  Gil would look back, walk through the water stops while I caught up, and wait until I was ready to plod along. 

After we crested Heartbreak, the activity of Boston college started to take over.  This was an early afternoon frat party/homecoming/street festival in full swing.  We were yelling back at the crowds, and I told Gil where to expect to see our families.  We knew that his wife especially might be worried because our chip times would have showed us slowing down drastically.  We are on a gradual downhill after the crest of heartbreak, and Gil tells me I have really sped up (anything must seem fast compared to walking!) But I tell him that when I know I am coming up to a spot to where I see my wife, it helps me pick up my pace for at least a mile before, and a mile after.  Unfortunately, I can only see Laura at one spot on Boston's point-to-point course, but at Chicago and Green Bay, she gets to 5-6 spots all over those loop courses. Then Gil spots his wife's blond hair, I run over, and high-five her and their son and his wife, and then  I see Laura, and I know I can make it. It is already longer than my last total Boston time, and the last 5 miles could be even slower.  But we get some Gatorade, some hugs and kisses and pictures, and we head off. 

As it gets later in the afetrnoon, it seems the crowd is more and more bositerous, maybe a littl over-served on this sunny day off work and school in Massachussetts.  But they are all for us, whether we like it or not.  Drunken guys yell things like "You guys are F***IN AWESOME!.  Near Fenway park, a thick-necked guy with a crew-cut tells the runner next to me checking his cell phone to turn it off and run, "Technology rules our lives! Turn off the technology"  I yell back to tell him that I turned off my running watch 2 miles back. He thumps his chest by his heart and points toward me  "YEAAH!"  I think if I was closer he would have tried to chest-bump me.  Gil is waving to the crowd, and he does his side-step as we cross an overpass, but he stumbles, and the crowd gasps, but he catches himself.  I tell him no  more for the rest of the way.

We come up to a banner saying one more mile to go, and I consider reaching up to hug or kiss it.  I didn't want to stop for fear I could not get going again, so I run by and leap up and slap it - getting a big cheer for the crowd.  Gil looks over at the wide street, with crowds lining the greenway in the middle and decides that the left side isn't getting enough attention, so he decides to run by and slap everyone's palm.  I catch up to him, and tell him to get ready two quick turns - right on Hereford, and left on Boylston.  We go by an underpass, and on the grassy hill, the pramedics have a runner with his head downhill, with an exygen mask on.  I guess I 'smell the hay in the barn', because Gil tells me not to speed up so much.  I don't know if he wants us just to have the same finish time, or he's afraid I'll collapse, but we soak up the crowds on Boylston street, and pass more runners, and a few fallen on the side, within sight of the finish line.  We cross, at 4:51:02.   The finish area is hot and crowded, we feel spent and exhausted, but we have to walk a few blocks to get any water, even warm, and our medals.   My legs are stiff, and my back is sore from holding ice up by my neck while I ran.  The post-finish area is a carbon copy of the otehr years I ran Boston, sunny, full of banners and really good runners, and I am proud to be one of them, and glad to have made it again.