I’ve been drafting a blog post about the 2018 Boston Marathon for the past four days (the marathon was Monday; it is now Friday). I am enjoying a respite from work and life by Spring Breaking with my family in Washington State, which has given me ample time to journalize about finishing what will most certainly be one of the most epic races in my life.
But it’s been a struggle to write about this race, and I won’t try to explain why… except to say that whenever I tried to start at the beginning of the race, the “beginning” kept getting further and further away from the actual beginning of the race. I found myself writing about:
- How the day before the race, I spent about two hours preparing my race gear and drop bags with primary goal of avoiding hypothermia.
- How the week before the race, I noticed the rain in the forecast; subsequently, the rain/wind/cold predictions got more dire with each passing day.
- How four weeks before the race, I developed a constant tightness behind my left leg that flared into something concerning enough that I stopped training pretty much entirely, meaning I missed some key training runs and also suffered a huge mental blow coupled with endorphin withdrawal.
- How six weeks before the race, my training was going so well that I thought I could maybe run a 3 hour 30 minute Boston Marathon (which would be a 9 minute PR).
- How up until two years before the race, I never thought I’d ever toe the line for the historic, storied, somewhat elitist Boston Marathon.
So because I have failed to write a cohesive, complete post when I start at the beginning, let’s start at the end:
I crossed the finish line in Downtown Boston in 4 hours, 18 seconds. This is an amazing time because, when I started running almost 4 hours earlier in Hopkintown, “4 hours” was the goal time that I had in my head. As noted in the bullet points above, for a while I was going to shoot for 3 hours, 30 minutes… but also see references to “stopped training” and “avoiding hypothermia.” I would be running in self-preservation mode, and I thought 9-minute miles would get me to the end, safe and most importantly running. My #1 Goal: Don’t you dare walk the Boston Marathon.
The last two miles were also the worst rain of my day. The deluge was fierce, wind-swept, stinging. But every time the rain picked up, the infamous Boston Marathon crowd would rally in return. I struggled to maintain my 9-minute mile pace, but I gritted my grin and weaved past my fellow runners as I plowed through puddles. The roar of the crowd was unlike anything I’ve experienced in a race; emotion welled in me as I barreled to the finish line, still determined to get that 4 hour marathon that I knew I was so close to.
“Carnage” is how I would describe the course after mile 20. It didn’t surprise me, as I would say most runners did not prepare adequately, in terms of gear or running with self-preservation in mind. For instance, I saw some runners wearing singlets with nothing protective over them except for a flimsy poncho. When these thin little runners stopped to walk up the hills of Newton, they would quickly get cold and have to visit a med tent. I had no such issues — because I was wearing my excellent hooded running rain jacket, because I was running a sustainable pace, and because I am not a thin little runner.
Just after mile 19, I saw Little Boy and Mr. P. My excitement was unbridled, and I started running towards them screaming with jubilation. My already-high spirit had been kicked into heaven.
Around mile 19
“Ten more miles.” I forced myself to take more Gatorade. However diminished the crowd was by the rain, I was still in awe by the number of people who were there, out in the rain, cheering relentlessly. I began to understand that the Boston Marathon is truly a great marathon. I had always assumed everyone wanted to run Boston Marathon because of the high qualifying standards and the level of competition, et. cetera… but the truth is, they need the high qualifying standards because everyone wants to run it. The journey through the center of eight very different Massachusetts towns (where you are always greeted with a roaring crowd) makes for an amazing course. I began to force a smile as I ran.
The infamous Wellesley “scream tunnel” around mile 14 was not as loud as I was expecting. There did not seem to be many college girls, but there were some, and I did see one runner stop to get a kiss (which was sort of gross because he looked older than 40, yuck.) Best sign: “Kiss me, I’m wet.”
I wasn’t fully confident that I would finish the race until the halfway mark came and went, and I hadn’t felt anything else before my left knee. The intermittent nature of the rain started to get less frequent.
There were some funny signs about Stormy Daniels. It was fun to run through Natick past where I used to spectate the marathon when I lived there.
Around mile 5, I felt the tightness behind my knee rear up. Even worse, the tightness caused my lower hamstring to cramp. I ran for about three miles, worrying that it would get worse and I would have to stop the race. Then, during the mile 8 water stop, I grabbed a cup and stopped to walk. Immediately something seized painfully behind my knee, and then everything felt… fine. Normal. It was as if something had been stretched out and put back to normal.
I passed the starting line at 11am (ten minute past my wave) in a light rain. It had been mentally and physically exhausting just getting to the starting line (that’s an entirely different blog post that I will probably never write) but I was starting the Boston Marathon warm, reasonably dry, and with the goal of finishing in 4 hours.
