Connie asks if I beat Fat Rickey. Indeed, I did. He wasn't able to prepare as well as he usually does, ran cautiously, and had a very difficult last mile. I beat him by about 14 minutes. Since we're both mathematics teachers, we both noticed his chip time is a good approximation of Pi, 3:14:15.
I loved Connie's report about renewing her relationship with Boston. As I've noted, we're different. Mine has been pretty steady, some years better than others, but on the whole, quite satisfying and rewarding.
I still can't get the landmarks in order. I meant to watch for the John Kelley statue, but I forgot again. I still haven't seen it.
The Dixieland Jazz Band was playing "Saints" this year. They played "Saints" every year for 20 years, then experimented with other things like "Bill Bailey" for a couple of years. I think they even missed a year. Now they're back to "Saints". When I started running Bostons, their female vocalist was a hot young thing and all the band had shiney top hats. Now, the top hats are a bit faded, and she's getting older just as fast as I am. That's my favorite landmark along the course.
I always slow down through Wellesley. That's ten seconds a mile well invested. Then, when I get my hearing back, I take inventory and try to find a rhythm that will get me safely through the next five miles.
I always mean to look at the pretty houses in Newton on the hill, but I always forget. I slow down there, too, shorten my stride, and still pass people. I always forget to count the hills, too.
The top of the hill was deafening this year, the loudest it's ever been. It was as loud as the finish. That confused me a little bit. I had to remind myself that it wasn't the finish.
I could tell I was in good shape going down the hills when we crossed the railroad tracks and I stepped smoothly over the tracks. When it's a bad year, I can't get my stride length to match the distance between the tracks and I have to chop and stretch my steps to get through.
The worst part of the race is always crossing Rt 128. The pavement has little ripples on it, and it's up in the air so the sound that the thinner crowd makes gets thin and blows away. It always seems to take about 20 minutes to get across.
After the race, I gave a little blood to the Children's Hospital so they can see if I had sodium or a heart attack for their experiments. They gave me lots of cookies.
My 5k splits went 22:38 (21:22 from the line) 21:49 21:36 21:44 21:43 22:14 21:52 20:00. Charter member of the Negative Splits Club.
I'm sorry if this seems to be a bit of a post-modernist race report. Maybe I'm chronologically impared, but I don't remember Boston as a sequence of events or as a flow from beginning to end. It is a bunch of individual events embedded in a familiar background. Remember Kurt Vonnegut's "Chronosynclastic infundibulum"? It's kind of like that.
I think I'll do Boston again next year. Anybody join me?