Positive Running

Ran my first Boston Marathon and it was a great experience.  With a million spectators, it is quite a race.  The story of this year's race was weather.  If you started in Wave 1 or the first half of Wave 2, it was great.  If you started in the second half of Wave 2 or in Waves 3 or 4, it was rainy and in spots windy.  The temperature was around 46 degrees, but it felt like low-40s, which is fine with me.  I'd rather have the cold than heat.  The rain was cold.  At times it seemed like freezing rain, and some of the course intersections did not drain very well.  When we got the the Newton Hills, the 12 - 15 mph wind hit us directly and you could feel the chill.  The wind and hills so late in the course caused a lot of runners to slow down significantly, so I had to dart all over the course to pass them between three times dropping my water bottle (50/50 water and gatorade) because my hands were freezing in my cheap, soaked gardening gloves that I had planned to discard early in the race (and wore for its entirety instead).

I lined up at the back of Wave 3 Corral 2 (Bib Number 17938), so the start was slow.  I finished as the 8500 runner to cross the finish line, so I guess I passed around 9400 runners. The race course is narrow and congested with 30,000 runners, and many runners were not thinking about the people behind them.  You often had a tight wall of runners who slowed me down, were difficult to run around, and required a lot of zig zagging throughout the course.  According to my Garmin, I ran almost a half-mile more than the marathon course with all the zig zagging I had to do.  That's what I get for qualifying so slowly last year when I was still a bit injured. For example, in the first mile, I passed a several hundred runners, but could only run it at 8:13, which was a half-minute slower than I wanted.  I ran mile 7 in 7:17, but there were sections where I was running at a 6:30 pace and would have toslow down to run around a wall of people running at an 8-minute pace.  So my time doesn't tell the whole story of the level of effort required to achieve it.

The security was tight with Boston's finest and the FBI all over the course.  The organization was very good, although (a) they could have had more porta-potties at the Athlete's Village (a perennial comment) and (b) the gear check tents were a bit far from the finish line for some runners.

But all that was minor compared to the enthusiasm of the crowd and the dedication of thousands of volunteers.  The women of Wellesley College were especially motivating.  And also, the volunteers were great and dedicated.  The temps, rain and wind were not easy on the volunteers handing out drinks and managing course security.  The supported the marathon with smiles and enthusiasm.

Ran 10.9 miles in 91:30, running three times around the Cooper River Park in Collingswood, NJ.  Camden County is doing a lot of construction around the park, but the running trail was clear of construction.  It was around 49 degrees with winds from the west at 20 - 30 mph.  My 8:24/minutes pace was pretty easy, but was more like 8:40 against the wind and 8:10 at other parts of the trail.

Had limited time to run due to scheduled lunch plans, so ran 7-miles in 53:25 on the TM at LA Fitness, followed by a 0.1-mile cool-down