ACTUAL RACE REPORT STARTS AT NEXT HEADING A FEW PARAGRAPHS DOWN. FEEL FREE TO SKIP INTRO.
Wow! What a great weekend. Doone (my wonderful wife) and I took the red eye out of Vegas Friday night and arrived in Boston at about 7:30 Saturday morning. With a few drugs I was able to fall asleep before take off and wake up upon landing. We took the T into downtown Boston and checked into our hotel then headed over to the expo and arrived about 10 minutes before they opened the doors at 9 am. We had a great time doing the expo and managed to control our spending pretty well this year. After what felt like about an hour but was really 3 1/2 hours we took off and had lunch at Legal Seafood. Yum!
We spent the after noon resting in our room before we met the gang for dinner. It was so great to see everyone. Smooth and Larry, Teena and Ryan, Marc E, Lark, Canyon, Kathie, and Lucy (from the fast running blog) and her two kids all went out for a wonderful Chinese Dinner in China town. The food was wonderful and the company even better. It was great to see everyone again. Being in Boston with the gang makes for an amazing weekend. They are all great runners and even better people. I am honored to be included in the group.
Sunday morning Doone and I slept in and then went for a Sunday brunch at the Westin which was to die for. We then met most of the gang in the lobby and headed to church. Surprise though, the building was locked up. We figure it was stake conference. Smooth found a door which looked like a utility door that was unlocked and we went in and held our own worship service complete with opening song (accompanied by another runner who was outside the building wondering when church started) prayer, a few talks, and closing song and prayer. The highlight of the meeting was Smooth's telling of her conversion story. The more I know Smooth, the more I love her. Our own little meeting was an experience I'll never forget and that alone made our trip to Boston worth it, but it kept getting better and better.
Back to the hotel for some R and R and then, we met up again to go to the pre-race pasta dinner. If there was anything bad this weekend it was the food at that dinner. YUCK! Next year we have to go to the North End for real Italian food on the night before the race. I'll even make reservations. Most everyone stopped and bought real food on the way back to the hotel.
After getting my race gear ready I fell asleep around 9 pm and slept soundly until 2 am. That's like a ton more sleep than I ever get before a good race, so I was happy with that and spent the next 3 hours laying in bed and pondering. It was actually really nice. At 5 I got up showered, got dressed, and had some breakfast. We all met up at 6 in the lobby and headed over to the busses. The weather was amazing and for the first time in my 4 Bostons, we were not going to have a headwind. It was mostly a cross wind a little more at our back then and front. We all hung together in the athletes village for a while before setting out for the starting corals.
RACE REPORT STARTS HERE
I relaxed in the coral a bit and before we knew it, the race was under way. With the coral system (I was in # 2) we got off to race pace right at the beginning. The first mile is the steepest downhill and when we passed the first mile around 6:35 I think. (Oh a quick side note, my Garmin got messed up on the way to Boston and when I fixed it and reset it I forgot to set the auto splits. It took me about 8 miles before I started trying to manually hit the splits and I was bad at it, so I don't have mile splits.) Without the garmin giving me the instant feedback I'm used to I decided I would start running by feel and paying attention to my 5K splits trying to keep each one under 21:00.
I ran next to Minnie Mouse (actually a petite asian man), a ninja in a full black outfit from head to toe, and a few other characters for a while. I kept taking stock on how I was feeling and I kept feeling good so I kept on running. The ladies and Wellesley were loud enough to hurt my eardrums this year. I stayed far to left until the very end when I went over and high fived the last 20 yards or so of them for a nice little adrenalin rush. I hit the halfway mark at 1:26:54. This was definitely faster than anticipated, but I was still feeling good, so I kept on running.
The next few miles were easy, but the Newton Hill were approaching. Since I had a decent amount of time banked I decided I would take the hills easy and hopefully make up the time heading back down them. This strategy seemed to work well for my and by the time I topped Heart Break Hill at mile 21 I was still feeling strong. I took of down the back of Heart Break with a couple miles around 6:40. I then just had to hang on for the last few miles. I did have to dig deep to keep the pace right around 7:00 but was able to keep it up. I turned right onto Hartford street getting ready for my big turn onto Boylston and my first sight of the finish line. In honor of last year's run and my 6 month recovery from the ruptured PF tendon, I did the airplane as I turned onto Boyleston. I dug deep and ran that last .2 miles (actually a bit more) as strong as I could and crossed the finish line with a new PR 2:58:03!!!!!! I was pumped.
5K Splits:
K Mile Time
5 3.1 20:21
10 6.2 20:27
15 9.3 20:42
20 12.4 20:52
25 15.5 20:58
30 18.6 21:35 (first 2 Newton hills)
35 21.7 21:53 (last 2 hills. The mile with Heart Break was my slowest at 7:28)
40 24.8 21:37
? 26.2 10:38
END OF RACE REPORT
After finishing I sped off to my hotel and showered and changed into street close and headed back to the finish line to see the others. My parents called me from their mission in Tansania. That was awesome. I found Doone, Larry, and Ryan and was able to Teena, Kathie, and Smooth finish. We missed the others. That night we met up and celebrated with a fabulous dinner at Legal Seafood, followed by Ben and Jerry's, and then a quick trip to the post race party. It was sad to have to say good bye to everyone. They are all amazing. Thanks for making my weekend so special. You guys are the best!!!!!! IF YOU READ ALL THAT YOU DESERVE A FINISHER'S MEDAL. | 