Getting back to Boston

Condensed version: Started with 4:30 pace group, felt good, left pace group behind at about the 3-mile aid station. Big mistake. Temperature warmed quickly; felt thirsty at about 10 miles even with taking fluids. Trouble. Had to start walking even before reaching 13.1 at the Capitol. Kavanaugh Hill also a bunch of walking. Hoped to make up time on Lookout downhill. Nope. Hamstring cramped very quickly. Tried to resume running at bottom of the hill. More cramps. Run quickly settled into pattern of run a little-cramp-walk a lot-repeat. Pace group finally caught and passed me at about 20 miles. Next pace group caught and passed me. No chance of running on ANYTHING resembling a hill, but I was going to finish no matter what. Saw Tyler on course about .75 mile from finish; how did he get up here, he doesn't walk that far ever. Finally, at Statehouse Center about quarter mile from finish, Julie, who has been waiting for me for 2.5 hours after finishing her half, jumps the wall and runs with me. I'm hurting seriously, but I'm going to finish. Pam is there too and I never even saw her. As I turn off LaHarpe to the finish, cramps hit again, but I run/limp to the finish. Exhaustion, disappointment, pain, but tears of joy too. This old guy has finished a marathon. Zero to marathon in 34 weeks. Dick Beardsley said in "Spirit of the Marathon" that once you've finished 26.2, you'll never be the same again. I suspect I'm going to find he's exactly right.

No way I can run today, or work (took the day off), but I went back and totaled up my miles. Ran 728 miles from July 7 to yesterday. Probably hadn't run 72 miles total in the 21 years preceding that. It was hard, but I did it.

Raining like heck yesterday when I took Julie to the airport. That later turned to snow. First attempt at running today, a very slow mile on the TM. Didn't feel too bad today returning to work either, and my coworkers made a big deal out of it. Put a picture of me wearing my marathon medal (which is HUGE) on the bulletin board in the patient waiting room. Boss also told me he'd pay me $1000 if I keep going and run another marathon. I was going to do that anyway, because I'm POd at my poor performance Sunday, but a little financial incentive doesn't hurt. Not sure where I'm going to run next, maybe Memphis in December.

Another slow recovery mile. Legs not TOO bad...

When I got off work it was snowing -- hard (this after 70 degrees Sunday afternoon; it's snowed TWICE this week). Changed clothes immediately and went for a run. I've never run in the snow before, but I looped around the neighborhood behind my apartments. Probably went faster than I should have, took 19:36 to run 2.1. Fun. Have to do this again when weather permits, which doesn't happen much around here. Maybe during my vacation in a couple of weeks.