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Sunday September 05 2010
 

Boston Marathon 2010 - Race Report

Printer friendly version Posted on: Wednesday April 21 10:06:26 AM

Boston Marathon 2010 - Race Report

Boston Marathon 2010 - first of hopefully many trips to Boston for me.

Here's how it played out...

Friday

We drove there after work hoping to make good time and get there around 1am. Between Toronto and Hamilton we hit tons of traffic, lot's of stress and had to cut the drive at midnight a few hours away to shack up. Good call.

Saturday

Got to Boston, checked in and hit the Race Expo (Amazing!) and met for lunch with an old friend who moved to Boston, and some of our group of Boston Qualifiers and spouses. Oh,m yes, of course I bought this years celebration jacket and a few other things. For dinner we went to the north end with 12 of our group of 16. Nice restaurant, great food, good vibe.

Sunday

We were up early for the 5k race. Anita, Cam and Sarah plus a few friends and spouses of our group ran as well.

Sarah, 16yr, finished 3rd with a 19:44 in the 15-19 age group, 18th woman overall. Cam, 9yr, ran 21:39 and finished 12th in the 10-14 age group. Very cool. Very proud.

Anita limped through with a nagging hip injury and simply took it all in. She is a trooper!

After the 5k we went to the 'All Canadian Brunch' put on by MyNextRace.com and was sponsored by Porter and Tim Hortons. That was pretty cool. Another trip to the expo...yes, this was necessary.

We enjoyed a nice dinner in a cool Sth Boston small restaurant (224 Boston Street) at a tiny restaurant near our apartment, just with the fam and our room mate, Duff, my good friend/mentor who made his 3rd trip Boston

Unfortunately I slept like crap. Nervous about missing the alarm combined with loud talkers outside out window, major traffic and footsteps from floor above. I knew it was going to be a tough race.

Monday

Managed to wake up early somehow. Excited! Duff and I got in a mess of traffic and got lost trying to meet our friend Nir to then walk to the buses. So I never did see Nir until after the race. Even though wee weren't going to run together, it would have been nice to hang out beforehand. Nir ran a PB of 3:16 by the way. He proved hard work pays off again. So Duff and I waited forever for the buses, then a long line up for the porta potties but there was much excitement to make the long line ups bearable...nothing but good memories despite the waiting and stressing. The spirit was wicked.

As for the race...

Checkpoints 5k 10k 15k 20k Half 25k 30k 35k 40k
0:24:31 0:48:39 1:12:44 1:37:21 1:42:52 2:02:45 2:29:47 3:00:21 3:30:09
Finish Pace Projected Time Official Time Overall Gender Division
0:08:32   3:43:38 11115 7915 1481


As you can see, well off my best time but not too bad all things considered. I hoped I would be feeling better, in order to be in the 3:25 range and still feeling good enough to enjoy the whole race. I did race my plan which was to test the waters after this year's intermittent training by going out in 1:40 and take it easy in the 2nd half if I felt I was risking a struggle to finish at that pace.

I got to the half in 1:42 thinking if I tried to run a negative split I'd be crawling in based on how I felt. I wanted to enjoy my first trip to Boston so I shut it down and managed to enjoy the entire race, the entire day. From the Athletes Village and the long walk to the start. Feeling 'dead' after the first downhill. (who bonks in the first mile?) All the great spectators and all of the landmarks.

Heartbreak Hill.

We've heard so much about it. It is not a terribly steep hill but it is long and it does hit you just after mile 20. Even though I was going easy at this point, I still found it tough. It follows several other hills and is followed by several more. despite the net downhill course, the rolling hills are tough on the legs....and tiring.

I spent the entire last 5 miles high fiving despite my tired arms from the constant high fives along the way. I often ran way off yo high five people on the outside of the turns that were not getting their chance for high fives. I am nice that way. The constant cheering and exuberance was awesome. Simply awesome. I texted my wife at a porta potty stop at mile 21 to tell her not to worry, and that I was going to cruise in and soak it up.

Wearing a Canada shirt paid off huge, must have received over 300 'Go Canada' and other runners around me were bummed that I was getting cheers and their local university shirts weren't. I still can't believe how great the spectators were. And the race direction...my god the BAA organization is overwhelmingly impressive.

The Citgo sign came into view, I got a bit emotional here, and a bit upset I wasn't able to race harder, but that passed. Because I was running the tangents long and to the outside, I was able to hear my family calling my name. I stopped and snapped a photo of them and gave them all kisses.

My Support Crew!Almost done

But not necessarily happy about that. I really didn't want this one to end. After I saw the fam, I had 1 mile to go, it flew by, I ran it pretty slow, second slowest mile of the race, chatted with spectators, asked for some of their beer and was offered one, but I declined.

Right on Hereford, left on Boylston. I ran to the far side and got loud cheers as nobody else was going that far over. It was a fun way to finish. The famous blue and gold finish arch got closer and I worked my way through, crossed the line and threw my arms up in triumph, not because it was a fast time but just because it was the celebration of finishing a big goal. Man was it cool. The post race volunteers were so nice, congratulating and smiling, seeming so happy to be a part of the race themselves. And this is after 11,000 other runners had already finished.



Monday night, we partied back at our apartment, pizza, junk food, beer, laughs, all of the stories. Everyone had a great time at the race and we celebrated a couple of PRs a couple of blow ups and a few ran like me, just enough to finish in a decent time and still enjoy the race. I slept much better Monday night!

Tuesday

We got early to drive Duff to the airport. He is doing 'Boston to Big Sur' next weekend in California. First 400 to sign up for both races gets special shirts, jackets and medals. Sweet, I'd like to do this next year, or some time. It turned out Duff got his flight time wrong and rushed off in a cab, making it there just in time.

The drive home was much smoother despite frequent stops to keep the legs moving. We saw Boston shirts and jackets at each stop (we stopped 8 times) and had some good chats at each stop. The running community rocks.

The final word

I did not get Boston out of my system so to speak. It doesn't work that way.It's definitely not a feeling of 'been there done that'. In fact it is more like a drug, you try it, you like it, you want more, you need more. It's a good thing  that this drug won't have too many adverse side effects.

I can't wait to do it all again!
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 Posted by Dave on: Wednesday April 21 10:06:26 AM

Comments:

comment bubble Duff
 

a positive race report . Good on you Dave.

It was a good day.

and waaaittt a minute, I clicked on the thumbnail as it was a bit different looking.

How could you let the Americans get a head of you?


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Posted on: Wednesday April 28 05:40 PM
www link icon  comment bubble Runshorts
 
A big congrats on Boston #1!  I think the first Boston is to be celebrated, not raced.  I know few people so fixated on time they seemed to miss the reason Boston is Boston, which is a shame for their first one.  Sounds like you really embraced the race.  Are you going back next year??
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Posted on: Saturday May 01 09:16 AM
comment bubble Dave
 

I hope to be back next year. We'll see what happens on May-ssisauga 16th. Otherwise, I will give it a go at Scotia. I have a feeling it wil sell out even earlier this year so I don't want to wait too long to sign up...know what I mean?


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Posted on: Sunday May 02 07:20 PM