Sad, Sad, day. What the H311 is wrong with people.
A little disappointed with how the race went for me, but I was disappointed weeks ago so no big deal. Kind of a rough day for a lot of us, not sure why cause conditions were perfect.
Writing a race report seems a little insignificant but I realized that this is my personal record of my experience and some day I will probably like to come back and read it. After my flight home today I'm a little more emotional than even yesterday, the Boston Airport was a little crazy, policemen questioning everyone who might have seen something or had pictures they could send in, lots of people asking me my experience. I felt a little awkward cause my experience was about the same as all of you, all my information came from watching TV since I had already made it back to the house when it happened. I was actually on the phone with Scott Keate trying to figure out how to get into the house, he was on the bus coming home and all of a sudden he said "I think a bomb just went off" I said, "well I better let you go then." I spent the next hour and a half sitting on the front steps of the house locked out wondering what the heck was going on. OK, now to my report. This is the part where I make all of my excuses. As I've stated in numerous posts for some reason my training wasn't working out so well, I was going through all the motions but something was missing, various injuries may have been to blame, travel may have taken it's toll but for some reason I just never really got it all together like I had wanted. My hamstring plagued most of my 12 week schedule, it was tolerable but I just wasn't able to ever feel confident in my workouts, then 2 weeks before the race I figured my hamstring would finally have a chance to recover during taper and out of nowhere my heel started hurting for no reason. I logged 60 miles total for my 2 week taper, which I think was the right thing to do, I actually felt pretty prepared. In China my heel was acting up again so when I got home I purchased some cushy inserts for my shoes which seemed to help a lot, so Saturday when I finally got to Boston I felt like things were looking good. Despite being Jet laged and just overall tired from travel I felt very good, and thought I had my heel and hamstring problems worked out. Sunday night I couldn't sleep at all, Jet lag or nerves I'm not sure but I was up all night, not only that, between midnight and the marathon start I counted going to the bathroom 15 times, I was really worried about de-hydration but every time I took a drink I was in the bathroom 5 minutes later. Very strange I've never had that problem before. Anyway, we all woke up early, missed the first bus downtown by 10 seconds because none of us felt like running after it :) so we waited out in the cold 40 minutes for the next one. Got to the marathon buses still on time and took a very long ride to the start line. Weather was perfect, cool, a little sun but mostly cloudy and a slight breeze. My dreams come true, I felt good (except the 7 trips to the porta potty at the start). We all waited together until it was time to ditch the drop bags and start walking to the start line, I lost everyone then cause my drop bus was in the 4000's theirs were in the 100's so I walked to the start alone. I was pretty sure 26.2 miles was going to eventually reveal one or all of my injuries but I wasn't sure when and I wasn't sure which, so my plan was simple. No plan, no pace goal, no time goal. I said 2:50's would be nice but I realized that if my hamstring cramped up 3:30 wasn't out of the question. So I just found my spot at the front of corral 5 and decided to just go with it, passing 4000 people would be impossible anyway. And then we were off, very slow at first, took 3 minutes to cross the start line and then we were still walking a 100 yards or so after the start but eventually we started going. Immediately I found out which injury was going to come out first, the initial downhill was killing my heel, pins and needles shot up my let every right step. I told myself I only had to deal with it for 13 miles cause I was only running on that leg 1/2 the time :) I tried to ignore it and make sure it didn't affect my stride too much. I just stayed with the same group, pretty much everyone there qualified with a 3:05 and was shooting for sub 3:00 we eventually locked into 6:45 pace and that suited me just fine. I quickly realized that if you start with the 3:05 group mentally it would be hard to run anything other than a 3:05 cause by the time it opens up enough that you could start passing people your pretty content to just stay there, it would take a lot of mental determination to break away and start passing people I think. Despite the pain, I found super power in all the little kids and giving them high fives, I'm not sure why I like it so much, I'm not sure why they like it so much but giving high fives gives incredible strength, every time I started to slow down I'd just focus on the crowds and for an instant the pain would go away. The people of Boston are amazing, why is this the only Marathon in the World with so much local support? those people love the marathon, it's really an amazing experience. I can still here the echo of the aid station volunteers yelling "gaderade, whada" I love the accent. Ya gotta say it with the accent to really appreciate it. Anyway, by the time I made it to Welsley College (that was crazy) I really hurt, those girls got me through that section but after that I had to make a decision. Continue torturing myself, or just try and get all I could out of Boston. If you look at my splits you'd say "classic bonk" 1:29 first half 1:38 second "bonk" well, I'll tell you, it wasn't, I never actually bonked, in fact I'm pretty sure my HR never went above 165bpm. I simply just made a conscious decision at the 1/2 way point that my only goal was not to leave Boston with a bad taste in my mouth and never want to come back again, so I purposely slowed down to relieve some of my foot pain, it still hurt, but it was manageable and for the rest of the race I just enjoyed the people, read the signs, high fived as many kids as I could find and tried to enjoy it. The hills did get to me a little bit, heart break was slow going but not a big deal but I made it, I experienced the Boston marathon which is what I have wanted for me 40th birthday for 4 years now, so I'm very happy. I have other races I can try and run faster but for now I'm pleased with the out come. I had a great time, made some really good new friends and I just really want to thank Scott, Dan, Reed, Brandon, Craig, Paul, and Ryan for a great time. I'm sorry the whole thing was shadowed by tragedy but it really is an experience I will never forget, or regret.
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