April 15, 2013, at around 10:20 a.m., I was standing in the back of the second wave at the start of the Boston Marathon in Hopkinton. In front of me a river of runners were waiting, talking, stretching. We started slowly to move forward and I said to myself, “Oh no, here we go.” I had been enjoying a relaxing time in Boston with my husband and now I had 26.2 miles in front of me. I knew it was going to hurt.
We started off down a sloped street lined with woods on either side. It was quiet except for the sound of running shoes drumming on the asphalt and the rhythmic breathing of the other marathoners.
I stayed on the right side of the road, trying to control my pace, wondering how long until I should take my arm warmers off. Was I really running in the Boston Marathon? I looked at my watch: 8:20 pace. Or was it 8:10. It was already starting to blur.
A couple days earlier, my husband and I had taken a train from Philly to Boston. I always love the feeling of moving closer and closer to New England. I went to school in Massachusetts. Summers vacations were spent on the Cape. The warmth of Thanksgiving holidays and Summer strawberry picking were memories I thought of when thinking about my grandparents’ house in Connecticut. All the best stuff happened in New England. And now, The Boston Marathon.
Condo where we stayed. We loved the cat, who’s 20 years old!
We stayed in Cambridge in a local’s condo. We took the T from South Station to Central Square in Cambridge and walked down River Street. Our hostess was waiting for us outside the condo so that we wouldn’t pass it and get lost. She brought us up and gave us the tour, showing us our room and the fridge stocked with yoghurt, milk, eggs, fruit, and orange juice. The cupboards had coffee, tea, cereal, and other snacks. There was fresh baked banana bread on the kitchen table for us. I love Cambridge.
Matt in the restaurant River Gods.
That night we ate at a restaurant down the street called River Gods. That is now my all-time favorite restaurant. It’s small, eclectic, with stained glass windows from an old church. Some of the seats I think were actual pews, the tables were all very close together. But that was okay because that was part of the experience. Grainy projector images were flashing on one of the walls. Up in an alcove through an archway a couple guys were deejaying vynil music on a set of turntables. The sound system was incredible. The music sounded a bit like Morrissey from the Smiths, but was slightly too upbeat to be Morrissey. I could have stayed there all night.
The next day was the expo. I’m not a big fan of big expos. I suppose for some people, this would be a fantastic experience, but I just wanted to get out as soon as I could. I picked up my bib, bought a sweatshirt (that I wear nonstop) and immediately felt overwhelmed by the number of vendors and people in the place.
The next morning, we woke up at 4:30 a.m. I think it was about 5:30 or so when we left and the sun was already making its way over the tops of the buildings. My husband took a picture of me in front of River Gods in my dorky warm up clothes with my bright pink shoes.
Posing by River Gods on our way to the T race morning.
Race ready at 5:30 a.m.
On the T there were a lot other runners, of course. One of them gave a banana to a man asking for food and he talked to everyone about the benefits of potassium as he thanked her.
This was actually on our way to the Expo
The lines for the buses to Hopkinton were really long. I had to say good-bye to my husband before getting in the line since it was in a runners-only area. I hate those moments when I say good-bye to my husband. Anyway, I waited in line for maybe 30 minutes before boarding one of the buses. It was very impressive how efficient it all was. A long line of yellow buses would leave, and then another long line would take there place to pick up more runners.
In front of Boston Commons before boarding the buses to Hopkinton
The bus took about an hour I think. I wasn’t feeling very social and it was freezing on our bus. I did talk a bit to the girl sitting next to me who was from Holland and who ran a 3:19 time at the Berlin Marathon to qualify for Boston. She said she likes to go out really slow and then speed up at the end, but then she wondered if she could run a faster marathon if she ran faster at the start. I think she found out the answer to her question, because (shamelessly) I looked up her time after I was home and saw she ran Boston in about 3:30. She must have tried to go faster than normal at the start. But then how can you not with the downhills in the beginning?
When we got off the bus, we still had about a half mile walk to Athlete’s Village. It was sunny and crisp out. I thought we’d have a long wait at the village, but I basically stood in line for the port-a-potties twice and then my wave was being called.
I did get to have a good conversation with a few other runners in my second port-a-potty line. One woman was from Canada, about my age, and Boston was her second marathon. She qualified at her first marathon. She had had surgery on her abdomen just a couple months earlier and wasn’t sure if she would make it to Boston, but there she was. The other woman was in her 70s, a nurse, and was one of the top women in her age group. Awesome. The other runner was a guy, a cardiologist who talked to us about how marathoning wasn’t good for our hearts. Haha! There’s no denying it, we don’t run marathons for our health.
See how happy everyone was?
I often wonder if the nurse and the cardiologist were among the doctor-and nurse-marathoners who helped the victims. Sobering. We were all laughing and so happy and excited talking together there in the port-a-potty line at Athlete’s Village with no idea that something so horrific was waiting at the finish line.
I hadn’t realized that it was so late and I was a bit behind getting to the start of my wave. There were a bunch of other runners jogging briskly to get to the start too. I was nervous. I dropped off my giveaway shirt and headed to the start.
The race is a bit of a blur. What struck me most were all the uphills and downhills. It just didn’t seem to stop. I know it’s a net descent, but the constant up and down does take its toll.
Sign that was hanging for me at the Scream Tunnel
I do remember around mile 5 feeling frisky and picking up the pace. That is something I need to learn not to do in a marathon. Oh well. It felt good. We passed through a lot of small towns. Then we hit the scream tunnel and it was loud. I spotted the sign my friends had the Wellesley girls make for me and almost went over to tell the girls, but I was in such a zone, I couldn’t pull away from my path.
I think I stopped and took a drink at almost every water stop. I guess I didn’t need to do that because my stomach started to feel a bit too full. At one water stop I stepped aside and tried to discretely throw my cup and gu wrapper away in the trash barrel behind the tables. As I ran away I realized that the gray trash can was the water barrel they were using to fill the cups up with. Ugh. I was so ashamed! Stupid disoriented runner! I saw their look of horror and disbelief as I did this and I didn’t understand until it was too late. I’m so sorry water stop volunteers! They had to dump all the water, re-line the barrel probably with new plastic, and refill it. Lesson learned. I don’t know how to think clearly when running a marathon.
One of my favorite things about the race was the text alerts. Each time I ran over one of those rubber strips, I got really excited because I knew all my family and friends were getting another alert on their phones with my split time. It was very motivating.
My favorite section was Boston College. That section was filled with crowds and people screaming and cheering. I loved it. By the time I got to mile 23, I had started to slow down. I was in pain. It was at this point that the miles got really, really long. The final mile, I just kept repeating to myself that I would never, ever run another marathon, that this was such a stupid and insane thing to do, which it was.
See the pain in my face.
I’ve read other people’s blogs about Boston, and everyone of them talked about smiling the whole way, especially the final mile. I don’t see how that’s possible. I was in so much pain. I wasn’t smiling at all. When I saw the finish line I sped up because I just wanted to stop the pain.
After the finish, I was expecting to be able to sit but it was so crowded. They kept corralling us through for what seemed like forever, but was probably 2 or 3 blocks. When I finally got to the bus to pick up my bag, there was still no place to sit. We were all just standing there, waiting! My legs hurt so bad, I kept stooping over trying to contain my pain. But then I finally caved and started to cry. There were some nice runners around me who helped me and let me cry on their shoulder. I cried, “It hurts so much.” The runner answered, “We know. We all hurt.”
In retrospect, the pain I felt was nothing. After the bombs, I felt I had no right to talk about any discomfort I had felt during the marathon. People lost their limbs that day. Young people lost their lives. And I ran past them. I still shiver at the thought of that 19-year-old placing his backpack near children and innocent bystanders and walking away knowing what it would do to them.
I finally made it to the family waiting area where my husband, our friend, and my husband’s cousin were. When I got there I sat on the curb and cried some more. I finally collected myself and we were all standing around discussing where we should go when we heard the first bomb. We looked up at the buildings expecting to see debris from an explosion. My first thought was that we were being attacked and we were in a city, trapped. Then the second one went off. We waited and then it was silent. We were a couple blocks away behind some buildings so we couldn’t see what was happening. We went to Boylston Street and then saw everyone running. Someone said, “There are people shooting!” No one knew what was happening, it was panic.
We ducked into a restaurant since we didn’t know where to go and didn’t want to get swept up in the crowd. The restaurant owner then locked the doors and let anyone already inside wait it out. That’s when we saw on the news what was happening. I must admit that I didn’t feel good about staying there. I just wanted to run as far away as possible. But my husband said we should shelter in place, since we didn’t know what was going on or even where would be safe.
Crossing the Charles River walking back to Cambridge.
They eventually evacuated the building where we were waiting it out and we ended up walking back to Cambridge. We saw other runners walking around, trying to figure out where to go. What looked like black FBI suv’s came out of nowhere and were all over the place. Traffic was at a halt as everyone was trying to get out of Boston.
We walked across the bridge over the Charles River, passed MIT, and made it to Central Square. We must have been delirious when we finally reached Cambridge, because we went into a restaurant called Veggie Galaxy and tried to order hamburgers.
We made it back to the condo. My husband’s cousin went home to Watertown (yes, he had yet to have that happen in his neighborhood), and our friend drove off. That night I couldn’t sleep and was up late talking to our hostess. Thank goodness for her. My husband fell right asleep, but I couldn’t shake the day’s events from me. So we just talked and talked late into the night.
At Veggie Galaxy
The next day, my husband and I took the T to the train station. They had army guards all over the place checking bags. Once we got on our train, we sat back, watched the landscape pass and tried to process what had just happened.
I feel honored and privileged to have been able to run Boston. I send out my prayers to all the victims and loved ones affected and will never take another running step for granted.
Run for the Run 