(Photos: Tina & I at the Doubletree 5:00 AM, Me with my new friends, Shelly & Debbie from Louisville, KY, Our footwear – Shelly was wearing fur lined army boots before the race! Me – just before heading out to the start, The scene inside the tent of more than 20K runners)
Amazing! What a weekend and race I had in Boston. Schuyler, Jess, Tina, Lilly, Nick & I went to Boston early Sunday morning. We went to the hotel – parked our cars and headed to the expo to get my number and do some athlete shopping – The Hynes Center was a mecca of sneaker vendors, socks, apparell, sports nutrtion and various other fun things to mill around and look at. We at the free samples and looked at the marathon goodies. I got Schuyler a great hooded sweatshirt, picked up my number, t-shirt – – Tina bought a few things and we milled with the many 1000’s of people there to shop with their “runner”. It was all very exciting and overwhelming at the same time. We saw Frank Shorter speaking to the crowd and I remembered my last boston in 2002, 6 mths post partum (I ran a 4;15) – going to the expo with Schuyler at 6 mths old. I have a picture of Schuyler with Frank and if he wasn’t speaking I had hoped to get one of him at 5 1/2. The crowd was elbow to elbow and we had lost Tina, Lilly & Nick – once we met up with them again (thank god for cell phones) we left and they all went to the Science Center.
I went back to the hotel and checked in. The room was ready and they had upgraded us to the presidential suite. It was a beautiful suite! I tried to relax and get my stuff ready for the next day, laid it all out and brought most of the luggage up to the room. The kids were so excited to be in the suite, it was really cute. But the rain was coming down in droves…. there was an electrical short and while Schuyler and I had gone out to get ice, we found that the engineering guy was worried about us in the room and evacuated us to 2 rooms down the hall for the night. It was fun in there while it lasted….
So by 10 pm at night I was exhausted from the expo, waiting for the room and moving all our stuff from one room to the other. Schuyler was completely wound up from the move and from going all day, he was really excited to be on this trip. So 10:15 we were sleeping and I set my alarm for 4:30 AM after laying out all my gear for the next day – number, clothes, warmup clothes and post race clothes with drink & GU ready to pack for the 26.2 miles….
Tina got up with me and joined me in the lobby – we milled around with the others all dressed and ready to take the shuttle to the buses. Despite the ongoing rain everyone was in pretty high spirits. Tough enough to run this course in good weather, but the noreaster and the monsoons predicted was just enough to make you a little nervous. I was psyched, I had my training behind me and felt like I had done my due diligence in the long runs and really was aching to run!
The shuttle to the bus and then I got in line – here is where I met my 2 new best friends… Shelly and her sister (Debbie?) – they were from Louisville KY and I started to chat with them at the line of the bus, telling our stories of the marathons we had run and the experiences… Shelly had been to Boston last year, and it was Debbie’s first – sisters, they were going to run it together. I asked if they minded that I hang with them and we got on the bus… I chatted with Debbie all the way there. At “Athletes Village” right near the school in Hopkinton we were some of the first to arrive. They had this huge tent set up and we proceeded to get some water, bananas and then I got a few boxes to flatten out and make the “camp” for the next few hours…. It was still only 7:30 AM, but we were prepared and ready. People continued to get there and we met some new friends. One guy from Santa Rosa & the other from LA and a couple from Florida that we shared our camp of cardboard. Sharing stories about ourselves, stretching out, talking about what to wear and how fast we want to run. It was a cool experience.
We ate a little bagel, Debbie & I had some coffee, they shared their tylenol and various other sundries of prep (Shelly was a pro at this – was cool to see all the stuff she prepared and had in her bag). We took turns hitting the port a john and watching camp… Then it was time – 9:20 AM – we headed out to the buses to put our gear bags for the finish, said good bye to our new friends and started to walk in the rain to the start. I had my $5 NYC umbrella I planned on tossing at the start and it kept me dry. I decided to hit the port a john one more time and the lines were 8 ppl. It took what seemed forever as I checked my watch. I finally was at the front and jumped on what this man thought was his line, Oh well – I was nervous not to get to my corral on time with only 7 min to the start – I sprinted from that spot to the 6000 corral and made my way to the front. I shared my umbrella with this shorter man and chatted with a few – – not only were we running Boston but in a “noreaster”. Someone sand the national anthem and then the rope dropped for the elites…. I was 6 corrals back and we walked for a little while… I milled my way forward as much as possible, ditched my umbrella and then crossed the start line. I was on my way! I was flying!
This is the weather and race news that shares how bad the weather was —-> CLICK HERE
Lessons Learned:
Leave early – it helps with psyche and preparedness
Prepare – have a little bag (kit) with vaseline, aspirin, tissues, a pen, wear different running shoes and pack an extra pair (i didn’t and wish i did), Rain poncho is a good thing to have packed too.
My results are posted in a previous blog entry, but the other great thing about where I finished was that each person’s number is granted by the qualifying time that you submit. My 3;14 in Chicago gave me the number 6552 — So when you get your finish ranking, that shows you how many people you finished ahead of that qualified with a faster time. My finish rank was (unofficial) 1480 (i will confirm later, it is in the Boston Globe) – so that would mean I passed 5100 runners that had faster qualifyings times than I. What an incredible day!
