Ann and I are back in Houston after our Boston adventure. I have to say
that I enjoyed it all even though the marathon was a disaster for me.
The brunch and the dinner were great. We finally put faces to many of the
names and it was a great pleasure meeting everyone. I'm not going to try
to name them because I'll leave out too many if I do.
The people of Boston were fantastic. Without exception, they helped us
when we were lost (which we were a great deal of the time.) I was glad to
see those places that I had learned about so long ago in grammar school
like Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill), the Old North Church, and Paul Revere's
house. Also, I went to the expo and got a jacket.
We were prepared for a race with temps in the 50's and clouds. When we got
to Hopkinton, there was nary a cloud in the sky and it was already getting
warm. That didn't concern me much because we didn't plan to go for
especially great times anyway. I figured something around 3:55 and just
have fun. I took a disposable camera along so I could snap things along
the way.
I was in corral 14 and Ann was in corral 15 so she got to the front and I
got to the back so we could run together. It took 12 minutes to get to the
starting line. Once we did, I set the pace and put it at about 8:40 to
8:50. That seemed about right to me. I might mention that I had a problem
with my training. My hamstring insertion thing flared up right in the
middle of my training and I couldn't run a step for 3 weeks. I picked up
where I would have been if I had continued training and did everything all
right, but I didn't gain any speed. I had endurance, but no speed faster
than about 9:45 in training. That means that 8:45 was a minute faster than
I had run in training on any runs of any distance. Does that ring a
warning bell to anyone? Add to that that I had almost no hill training,
mainly because of the missed 3 weeks.
Anyway, I held up pretty well for about ten miles at our leisurely 8:50ish
pace. I was slapping all the kids' hands and waving to people and thanking
them for their support and trying to take it all in. Then, I just ran out
of gas. Completely. I had to stop and walk going uphill. That had never
happened to me in any race before other than an ultra, not ever. I had
cramped before and had to walk, but never once had I just not been able to
run for lack of strength. And I was thinking to myself, I've spent the
last 35 years wanting to do this, and I've been training and running
marathons since 1992 trying to do it. I finally qualified. Now that I'm
here, my god I have to finish. I can't quit. So, I started running
again. I had 16.2 miles to go and I felt like I had already run a
marathon. I was wondering if I was going to drop dead before it was
over. But I couldn't quit.
Ann was there beside me, flitting around. For that matter, the bride and
groom, Uncle Sam, the United States flag, and Elvis were around me a lot of
the way too. It reached the point where I had to stop and walk at every
uphill grade. On the longer ones, I'd get embarrassed and start running
again but I couldn't go very far before I'd have to walk again. At
Wellesley, I posed for a picture with one of the Wellesley girls kissing
me, and that actually gave me the energy to run all the way through the
rest of the Wellesley girls before I pooped out again. And that's the way
it went for another excruciating 13 miles.
I thought, well, we won't make it in under 4 hours. We'll make it under
4:30 so Ann qualifies for next year anyway. Eventually, I started
wondering if we'd make it under 5 hours. Then I started wondering when
they'd close the course and run me off the road.
Ann, who would have had an excellent shot at winning her age group, stayed
with me all the way. When we reached the final downhill run on Boylston, I
started running a little better, but one of the muscles in my right leg had
the nerve to cramp, sending me hobbling over to the side to stretch
it. That seemed way too unfair. After stretching, I took off
again. Without any hills, I managed to sort of prance along. My form was
okay if you ignored that my strides were about 2 feet long. Ann had this
romantic image of us finishing hand in hand and she kept putting her hand
out, but I was afraid that I'd lose my coordination if I tried to hold her
hand and run at the same time. When we reached the .2 to go sign, I took
her hand and ran with her. I tried really hard to smile when we reached
the finish.
We saw Connie Chan after the finish line. That cheered us up some.
We got our finishers medals, picked up our bags and headed for our
hotel. On the trip to the hotel, I felt worse than I've ever felt after a
race.
But I'll tell you what. If today was Monday and I hadn't started the
marathon and I knew everything that I know now, I'd still do it. I've got
my jacket and I've got my medal and I've done my last marathon.
Richard Ferguson
Galveston