Boston Marathon 2011 Race Report

All in all a great weekend, and a positive experience.

Saturday, we went to the expo first thing. The expo was fun, I bought a few things, and my wife & kids decorated the 1 mile to go sign. From there we headed an hour north into New Hampshire, to pick up a new dog. He’s a rescue dog from Tennessee, thought to be around 2 years old and a Samoyed-Siberian mix. He looks like a white wolf with blue eyes. I had a hard time with him at first, he pulls like a sled dog when he’s on a leash. While it was all I could do to control him outside, inside he is incredibly calm and gentle.

My sister dropped four of us in Hopkinton by the starting line at 7:30, and we headed into the building overlooking the start. This was a great location, the office we were in was being used by the motorcycle cops who lead the race, by the TV crew filming the start, and by other security details for surveillance. We were the only runners in the office, and were treated like absolute celebrities. It was great being able to watch all the groups starting from the windows.

For Boston I was wearing Adidas Boston 2’s, and my soft running orthotics.

A bit after 10 we headed to the starting line, and got into our corrals. Joe was with me, Steve was a couple corrals farther up. I was hoping to hit 3:30, but was determined not to destroy myself like I did last year in Ottawa. To do that I wanted to hit the half in 1:44-1:45, ease up on the hills, and then see if I could pick it up the last 5 miles. Joe was aiming for 3:45, Steve for 3:30. Right over the start, Joe took off like a rocket. I held back, and was hitting 8 minute miles right away. A lot of people were passing me.

I hit the 5k mark in 25:09, high 5-ing kids along the way. I saw my whole family just past 5k, high 5’d the kids, kissed my wife, patted the dog. As I started running again, someone shouted “Hey, was that your girlfriend?” No, I said, we’ve been married a long time (as usual I can’t do math while marathoning). “Good he said, since 3 other people did the same thing after you!” I laughed, and told him we’d been married long enough that it was ok. “OK, he said, what about the 10 people who stopped to pet the dog?”

One of the best things about Boston was the interactions I had with other runners. I spoke to people from Canada, Washington State, Arizona, Oregon, Chicago, Ohio.... I even spoke to someone who is planning to run a race in the Jemez (Jemez marathon?) soon. Also, the crowd support was amazing. I had my name on my shirt in big letters, and all day people were shouting encouragement, chanting, etc...

OK, back to the race. Between 5 &10K I figured out that 3:30 wasn’t likely. I wasn’t running quite as fast as I wanted, but because of the number of runners it was hard to just pick up the pace. I’d planned to drink every 2 miles, but the tailwind was making it feel hotter than it was. I was drinking almost every mile. Wellesley was a riot, I did give kisses to a couple of students (with my wife’s permission), and ran along the row high-5ing everyone. I hit halfway in 1:45:22, just a bit slow.

Then came the Newton hills. The first one seemed long, but right after this I saw the family again at the 17 mile mark, just waving this time. The rest of the hills went pretty well. Heartbreak was challenging, but knowing it was the last big one went a long way, the mile that included heartbreak took 8:26. By this point I was passing lots of people walking. At mile 21 I decided to pick up the pace. I managed about a half mile at the faster pace, but just couldn’t sustain it. My new goal was to make sure I finished without walking, but even this was tough. The thought in my head was that I should be happy, this was as fast as I could manage on this race, on this day.

There was a definite change in the tone of people calling my name now, from the early “You are rocking it” variant to “Don’t give up!”. I was thrilled to see the Citgo sign, and kept plodding on tired legs. Looking back, my pace only slowed to around 8:30 for the last 5 miles, but I felt really lousy. As I turned onto Boylston, I caught up to Steve (he saw me, I was oblivious) and we ran it in together. Steve managed around 3:36, Joe was at 3:46.

My final time: 3:34:46.

In the walk from the medals to family meeting, 7 different medical people walked with me to check and make sure I was ok, when I asked one she explained that I had a “far away look on my face”.

Apart from my quads being very tired/sore for the last 6 miles, nothing else bothered me during the race. My shin and right Achilles were a bit sore after, but this is by far the best shape I’ve been in following a marathon.