Boston 2016 was a strange race. Almost everyone I know fell apart or ran a slow time, including me. Even the elites ran slower times than usual. A sunny, warm 70-degree start and a headwind later in the race when the temperatures started to cool down as we approached Boston all made for difficult race conditions. It doesn’t sound that warm, but after training through cold weather, it threw a lot of people off.
I was feeling so confident and excited before leaving for Boston. I had had my most amazing training ever for the marathon. I ran a half marathon PR at the end of a 70-mile peak week. I had amazing marathon pace runs. I felt like I was on fire the whole time. I just had so much fun training. I had really high expectations for race day and then . . . race day hit.
Here’s what happened. On Saturday, my friend and I took a plane from Philly to Boston. We stayed in a really nice guest house in a room with two full beds and a little breakfast nook to ourselves. Downstairs was a full kitchen we could use for breakfast and coffee, or to make dinner if we wanted. We could use the fridge. It was nice. And cheap. It was on a quiet street in Cambridge just a few blocks to the T in Central Square.
Gorgeous Boston Public Garden on our way to the expo
Sunday we had a late morning, stopped for a coffee and sat in the sun on our way to the T. We got off at Boston Commons and took in the sights. We strolled through the Boston Gardens and watched people on the swan boats. It was gorgeous. We finally made our way to the expo.
We ended up spending a couple hours at the expo from maybe 11:30 to 1 or so. It got so crowded at one point I couldn’t move, literally. I was stuck in a crowd of people like a sardine in a can unable to move. At first the expo was fun. We bought our awesome jackets. We took our pictures with our bibs by the marathon signs. But by the end I was frazzled.
We finally got out and walked around with a couple friends and had a late lunch. My lunch was a plate of fries . . . not the healthiest. We had dinner reservations for 4:30 in the North End, so I didn’t want to fill up too much. By 3 I was exhausted and my back hurt from standing and walking. I took a 15 minute power nap and then we went out to dinner. We stood in a long line for canollis in the North End. Then we walked back to the T and walked some more . . . too much.
How painful it would be to cross that finish the next day!
By the time we got home my legs were burning and my back was sore. I was freaking out mentally because I knew I had just sabotaged my race. We went to bed early, maybe 8:30 or 9. I thought I could maybe make it up with sleep. I was happy to be in bed so early. I tossed and turned, punched my pillow several times, and finally fell asleep around midnight. I woke up at 3:25 and couldn’t fall back asleep for the rest of the night. So much for sleep.
We got up and I had my oatmeal, nuts, banana and coffee. We walked to the T and took it to where the gear check was. We walked to Boston Commons. It was a gorgeous morning. The sun was out, the temperatures were mild, maybe in the low 60s or high 50s, just gorgeous. We talked to another runner who was running his 21st Boston Marathon that day. I thought to myself that perhaps I could still run a decent race. My legs felt okay.
When we got to Athletes Village the sun started to get warm. We waited in the port o potty line for about 40 minutes and I peeled my throw away clothes off. It was so crowded. You had to tip toe around people sitting on the grass to get anywhere. I didn’t remember it being this crowded the last time I was there in 2013.
Boston Commons!
They finally called our wave and we lined up to be corralled out of Athlete’s Village and make our way to the start. On the way they were giving out free sunscreen, so I put some on. There were a bunch of port o potties on the way that people had told us would have no lines, so I made a quick pit stop and made my way to the start. For some stupid reason I threw my water bottle away. I thought we couldn’t bring it, but by the time they said it was okay, it was already in the trash.
We stood for quite a while in the hot sun. I tried to stand by the edge under some shade. It was warm. I was thirsty. Our wave started.We were running down the tree lined street and all I kept thinking was where the first water stop would be. I lifted my shirt up to cool myself off. Not a good sign. Still, I kept going with my original pace plan. Not smart either. We finally got to the first water stop and I poured water on my head and drank some gatorade. Every water stop afterwards I would pour water on my head and take a couple drinks of gatorade and water. I surprised myself, because for the first time in a race I could actually drink while still running. I seemed to have perfected the art!
As each mile went by, though, my pace fell off by a couple seconds. I remember by mile 9 saying to myself that I wouldn’t be able to keep this pace, because my legs already felt tired. That never happened in training, and it didn’t happen in the half marathon where I was running faster for 13 miles. My legs felt much better both at my half that I ran at the end of a 70 mile week and during my marathon pace runs in the middle of 70 mile weeks. And here I was at mile 9 after a nice taper and my legs were beat. Warm weather and the stupidity of too much time on my feet the day before I’m convinced were the culprits.
Anyway, I kept pushing myself, but after feeling how poorly my legs already felt compared to how wonderful I felt during my training, I felt pretty demoralized. My mantra for the rest of the race was, “I’m having a bad race.” I tried to snap myself out of it, but I couldn’t.
The crowds were amazing. Because of the warm temps, more people were out than ever. There was tons of support and lots of kids handing out ice, which was wonderful. Then the hills hit and all that hill running I did during training seemed to vanish. They felt really, really tough. I was much less trained my first Boston and this time the hills felt so much harder.
I had envisioned myself picking up the pace after the hills and taking advantage of the slight decline and the huge crowd support by Boston College, but I just couldn’t. I was hitting a wall. I never hit a wall like this since using Hansons Method!! WTF!!! And I had had the most AMAZING training EVER!!!!
By the time I turned right on Hereford I was done. Left onto Boylston was even more painful. The finish line seemed to be getting further and further away. I started feeling really nauseous, but kept pushing. I finally finished in 3:35:31, a respectable time. Everyone afterwards told me how well I did. But during the race I thought it was just me having a hard race. I thought it was because of me burning out my legs the day before. I had been in shape to run a 3:25 marathon, and I just kept seeing that time getting farther and farther away with each mile. It was painful, both physically and emotionally.
I sat down on a curb after I finished and a medical tech person came over and asked if I was okay because I looked really pale. If you look at my finish picture, I look deathly ashen and pale. I was pretty out of it. My friend and I were supposed to meet at the letter E in the family meeting area. When I got there she called me and I couldn’t think clearly enough to understand where she was. I felt overwhelmed and alone. I finally found her and she told me she had a really bad race too and really needed to go back to our room because she wasn’t feeling well. When we got in touch with our friends, we slowly started to realize that everyone (almost everyone) had a really hard race. We actually didn’t do so bad, considering.
We both started to feel better. We got back to Cambridge and passed a flower shop that has one of those signs on it that invites you in for a free rose if your name is so-and-so. My friend wanted to look to see if it was her name that day, and it said, “If you ran the Boston Marathon today, come in for your free rose!” That made us feel so much better. We got our picture and the woman that worked there asked if she could post it to their twitter feed.
That night we went to a restaurant that had amazing hamburgers and I had my celebratory margherita and my friend had a beer. We got to finally wear our gorgeous pink and green Boston jackets with pride! We decided that we were coming back next year!
We’ll be back!!
I’ve finally come to terms with how tough Boston felt for me and am enjoying having another Boston in the books and another one to look forward to next year. So what’s next now? I took a couple weeks to recover after Boston so I could start fresh for my next segment. I told my coach about the races I’d like to do and he drafted up a plan for me. After tomorrow’s long run, I’ll have run about 52 miles this week. I guess 50-ish miles per week is my new base.
Run for the Run 