Pre-Race:
The race started at 10:00am, but our wave would go off at 10:25am. To get there at 7:15am I took a shuttle half a mile from to the gear check and bus to the start. I would been close to finishing my first 50K by the end of the day. It felt colder and made a last minute decision to swap the singlet to a t-shirt as I met my friend who I was running with. We caught the last bus for our wave at 7:45am. On the ride to the race, my friend started discussing that he was not up for our pace. It would be cold 45F, rainy with 20mph headwinds and at the time I thought it was ok to back off a little and run a little slower and just pick it up at the end.
The bus let us off a mile from the start in Hopkinton at 8:55am. I had a race program to sit on. Even with my throwaway pancho/cheap jacket/pajama pants/sweatshirt I was freezing as we waited squeezing in tents in the athlete’s village. We were in a giant field surrounded completely by porta-potties. There were long lines and I found a place to pee in the bushes (sorry Hopkinton). We waited an hour before getting the call for our wave/corral and then we marched the rest of the distance to corrals. One last porta-potty stop, but with shorter lines. We waited for the final call of our corral and barely made it to our corral in the front of Wave 2 a minute before the start. The corrals were surprisingly narrow, but it wasn’t surprising as the entire course is mostly the width of 2-3 car lanes.
Mile 1-4: Hopkinton to Some Boston Town (7:26/mile)
Mentally I had broken up the race to 6 sections. The first 4 miles are downhill. I kept a throwaway jacket on for the first mile as it was crowded and very difficult to get through the crowded field to stay warm. Because of the time qualifications, the people around you are all running the same pace so it never spreads out. In fact, you can actually hear the feet hitting the ground in rhythm and that sets the pace. We start having a little rain. This basically set the speed of how we ran unless we wanted to work much harder to break through. It was good that we were planning a 3:10-3:15 pace, but we seem to be going a little slower. There were some stretches where there were no crowds. I could pull into the bushes to pee, but hoped that the urge would go away.
Miles 5-10: More Boston Towns (7:25/mile)
After 5 miles there is a little bit of work as you start noticing the rolling of the course without the downhill. We were slow as my friend was not feeling great at our pace. He said that he felt like he was only good for a 3:24 pace today. I would slow down or he would catch up. I felt like I was walking at our pace, which in some ways they say it should bet that way at the start. I needed to find my rhythm, or else I knew I wouldn’t finish. He said that I could go ahead and I said let’s see how it goes, but we separated at mile 8. At around mile 10, I was warming up and I ejected my gloves and arm warmers. Boston, we have lift off.
Miles 11-16: Wellesley, Wellesley, Wellesley! (7:28/mile)
There are crowds along almost the entire course cheering loudly. But at this point, I am eagerly waiting Wellesley. You can start hear the Wellesley cheering a mile ahead. A packed wall for a quarter mile of screaming coeds are on your right side. Some dressed a little skimpy for the day. I flexed the guns and went in for high 5’s. It felt great. So I did it again. And one last time. No kisses of course :). But it was certainly the highlight of the race. A tip is that it’s actually hard to get over so prepare to be on the right in advance. I hit the halfway mark at 1:38:16. A little slow, not a PR today, but I was feeling ok and thought that I could still make up time at the end. I start focusing to get ready for the Newton Hills but was getting cold. The ground was wet, but managable.
Miles 17-21: Newton and Heartbreak Hill (7:54/mile includes bathroom stop)
Right before the hills I hit a porta-potty, my first bathroom stop in 10 marathons. Afterwards I was freezing. Throwing away the gloves and arm sleeves was a real bad idea. I had to squeeze my hands for heat. You know that when you make the turn on the brick fire station at Newton that you have the hills ahead. It was hard to get a good rhythm as I was avoiding puddles and the water draining downwards and you start encountering those walking along the side. I was determined to make it to the top of Heartbreak running. The hills are not much, nothing even like JFK at GG Park or the ascent from the Warming Hut to GG Bridge. But late in the race after a lot of rolling it’s a difficult climb. I manage to keep pace.
Mile 22-25: It’s all Downhill (7:54/mile)
Somehow I missed Boston College. While I made it to the top of Heartbreak, I started to notice my legs locking up from the cold. I use the downhill to keep me going. There are little sections of uphill, but they are welcomed as my quads are hurting from the downhill. It’s perverse. I passed more faster runners that blew-up walking. Also runners from behind are blasting pass me downhill. At mile 22, my family surprised me because I told them that I did not expect them to be out in these conditions (there were bribes of cannolis from Mike’s Pastry’s). They called out my name and I remember hearing “Robert” but I could not turn my head so focused on keeping going because if I turned I might fall over. I could not stop and had to keep going. I made it to mile 23 and knew that it was just a 5K, but I am slowing, running a little over 8 minutes/mile. The crowds keep you going at this point. The cheering crowd breaks through the brain fog of the cold, the pain, the effort.
Mile 25-26.2: Right on Hereford, Left on Boylston (8:42/mile)
When I saw the big Citgo billboard which marks a mile to the finish and was still trying to figure out if I was going to make it. An underpass gives me a little reprieve before having to climb back out of it, but I knew I was close from the shake-out run. When I saw the turn on Hereford only the third turn on the course, I was so ecstatic. After a slight uphill, the famous left turn on Boylston which I took as close to the street corner as possible. I sprinted to the finish.
Final Time: 3:24:08
I was a little disappointed, as I was going for a slight PR. The slow start, bathroom stop, body being cold, and the fade at the end each took it’s share of minutes. But If you told me last year that I could BQ (-5:52) for 2016 at Boston, I would have been ecstatic. I finished a little under my bib number (8222/26610) and was in the top third overall and my division (607/2058). I was in the lower 10% in dressing properly from the finish video.
Mile 26.2-27: Gear Check
When I started walking, I couldn’t wait for the body wrap, I was freezing and shivering. I had to ask someone to put my hood on. Then it was the ridiculous mile walk back to gear check. People were asking if I was ok because I was shivering so much. It was nice to have other runners around me, I think they kept me upright. They had a crowded changing tent which was great because the other warm/sweaty runners provided warmth. Out of wet clothes I immediately found a taxi. It was so nice to be warm and I would suggest to go directly to a cab after. No ice bath needed, already had one for a few hours.
After a long, long hot shower, I was finally ready for celebration. We had the cannolis from Mike’s Pastries, followed by favorite post-race lunch of beer, burger, and fries. I wear the Boston jacket/medal proudly and the rest of the day was conversations with other runners. It’s a remarkable group of people. I met someone who qualified for Boston while having chemo and then ran Boston at the end of a second chemo session. I met people who ran 10 straight Boston marathons. People my age with incredible PR times. But the most memorable discussion was with a runner from Australia who flew over for 24 hours to run Boston. When I asked him what inspired him, he said that while races like New York might be bigger and have celebrities, Boston was a “Race for Runners” where the field is filled with qualifiers having had to run at least one marathon well previously. An entire city celebrates your achievement of making it and running the marathon.
The next morning as I walked through the airport dotted with Boston jackets, still feeling that I should have run a better race I said to myself:
