Dear Coffin Kickers,
I will try to make this brief, since so many others will describe the events
in such great detail. I will have to skim over the gory parts.
First, I have abandoned the 1998 Karl Watanabe School of Marathoning for the current version of the Watanabe Marathon Prep Program. Unfortunately, I do not have a new wife and new child to fall back upon. (Well, maybe that is fortunate. I don't know.)
I knew that someone had an axiom, your best marathon is not run off of your previous six months of training, but your previous six years of training.¨
With that thought in mind, I thought I would see if my previous six years
of training could overcome my previous six months of tapering. Sadly to
say, that was not the case.
I flew up Sunday morning in time for the Bagel Brunch, and enjoyed meeting
old acquaintances like Joe B., Connie Chan, Julie Kim, Doug Dodds, Cary
Craig, Mike Sheldon, Ken Myers, Val Burgos, and also meeting Richard and
Anne Ferguson (whom I recognized as soon I saw their T-shirts ?º) Jennifer
Browning, Chad Brooks, Tony and the wonderful Shelly. Now I find out that
Mary Harada was there and I missed her. Drats! Well, there were a lot
of other people there too. I know I have missed a few here!
(BTW, Joe B needs to post his heros poster story here)
The next morning a sizable contingent of about 25 Baltimorans camped out near the Power Gel Tent and succeeded in rounding up Ken Myers, among others. I met Nangel over at the info booth vainly looking for other DRSs, but I don't now how much luck she had.
On to the main event.
If you ever want to run Boston, this is a good tip. They will start calling
you to the Starting Line about 11:00 AM. Wait until 11:30 or so, ignoring
the volunteer trying to herd you to the corrals, and then you can find an
almost empty spot-a-pot line at the furthest spot away from the exit to
the corrals. But bring your own toilet paper, the spot-a-pots will be out
of it by then.
I walked all the way down to the starting area, and was standing by the bandstand when they played the National Anthem. I don't know if the timing was coincidental or perfect, because when the band played the bombs bursting in air the rockets red glare¨ the fighter planes flew over the bandstand at that exact moment with a loud roar. Pretty impressive,
I took a little path I know through the woods, and climbed down to the road and stood in the crowd. A volunteer saw me and asked me if I intended to jump in, and I told her, No, I was going back to the chip start after the leaders passed.¨ I don't know if she believed me. Anyway, I coached the crowd there to yell Go Lee¨ when I gave the signal.
There must have been seven or eight lead vehicles, not counting the motorcycles.
I think the wheel chairs started even further up the road because I never
saw any wheels while I was there.
Suddenly the race started and the leaders flashed by. Lee was in the lead women's pack, and seemed pleased and surprised to here the crowd yelling for her, and turned and waved at us.
I made my way back to the corrals, and arrived as the 11000œs were moving through, showed my 6883 number to the course marshal and told him I had missed the start, and he let me in.
Guys, I will tell you if you are not racing the Boston Marathon there is considerable benefit to running back at the 3:40 corral area. Just think about who qualifies among the men and the women back there, and what they tend to wear. Nuff said.
Anyway, onto the run. It was hot at the start, and I knew not destined
to get any better. I did not train for this, and none other then Jeff Galloway
himself had suggested that if I did a run walk I would enjoy the day and
not suffer too much, even if I were only putting in fifteen to twenty miles
a week.
So I ran around an eight-thirty pace and walked every mile. But the lack
of training eventually got up to me, and I tired around mile 22. But my
first metatarsal joint was aching, and I was concerned that it might get
worse, so I opted for extended walk breaks and walked the entire way from
Mile 24 to Mile 25. Then a girl walked up by me and suggested that she
could run it all the way in from the Citgo sign if someone would run with
her, could I do it?, and of course I had to try to oblige.
Well, I didn't try, I did. So we ran the last mile in together.
And that was that. My second slowest marathon ever out of eighteen. And
my slowest was a deliberate attempt to try and hit five hours.
But I must confess, I do not feel trashed, which is what Galloway told me.
Sunburnt to hell and back, but the quads are fine.
After multiple Boston attempts at going through Natick on a 2:50 pace, the only results were that I blew up and run in the 3:20s and couldn't walk down steps for a week, I can finally move the day after. I am just not terribly proud of the time.
But I had a good time nonetheless.
Regards from Baltimore,
JimA