Long ago and far away

I'm several dollars poorer but my names sits on a list of finishers for the 2006 edition of the Boston Marathon. Officially I ran 3:49:06, finisher number 10825 which means a good chunk of the second wave of starters passed me en route to Boylston Street. It's peculiar how easy it is to jeopardize months of training just to have a couple of days of enjoyment in a new place. We visited Salem and Marblehead the day before, did a bit of siteseeing in the area, a lot of driving (most of it unintentional, Boston is not a 'driver's city). Saturday had poor diet as we missed lunch (blame it on the driving around Boston part) and Sunday's lunch was no better. Stuffing my face with pasta on Sunday night wasn't going to make up for it all, my body wasn't going to process enough carbs into glycogen in time for Monday's noon start. Add on to that too much time on my feet including an unnecessary 3+ mile jog on Sunday morning. I dressed warm enough for the wait in Hopkinton but I knew I was unprepared.

I kept running until I met my family at 39k and continued to 40k, where I simply had to give up trying to keep only 1 foot on the ground at a time. I was in pretty dire strites and actually felt like I would have to dnf shortly after I started walking. The brain wasn't functioning all that well and despite being 10 minutes off pace I had convinced myself I could still requalify with a solid effort over the last 10k, except I'd have had to PR both the 5k and 10k distances to do it, which doesn't make much sense in my long since recovered state of mind.

I won't forget the noise of the crowd and I'm at awe that they do this the whole way and many keep it up until the last finisher crosses the line. I had my name pinned to my shirt and the walk from 40k to Boylston was met with wall-to-wall resonations of my name saying "Come on! You can do it Jim....keep goooooing!!!!". Simply amazing. I was petrified to start jogging again on Boylston for fear of just keeling over, but once I did start I felt fine.

Anyone who tells you that there's no event like the Boston Marathon, they are not exaggerating or embellishing in any way. The girls at Wellesly are everything they say, beautiful from the first to the last and all willing to take kiss (or a sweaty hug) from a runner. Heartbreak Hill isn't that steep, but it takes forever and the crowd pulls you all the way up. Every downhill must be respected and for my next attempt I will need to practice downhills more than I do the uphills. At 30k my quads were ready to call it quits, they felt like hamburger and I still had 12k to go. It was probably the largest contribution to my not running the whole way.

Next time.