Boston 2010

Wow what an experience, the atmosphere was just incredible the whole way around and the Bostonians should be congratulated for their hospitality and enthusiasm. Simon had said how great it was but until you do it yourself you just can't apprecite how great it is.

Previous week ran around 45km with some in New York and a couple of easy runs in Boston.


Boston Marathon

Took the yellow school bus out to Hopkington at 6 am, sounded like schoolkids with all the chatter on board with everyone very excited. Arrived at the school about 7 and then straight to the loo, had a bagel, settled down on one of the benches with Craig, chatted as we had our drinks and took turns in lining up for the portaloos. It was cold, so much so that my feet were aching, last time that happened was in Nepal and everyone was rugged up to the max, as it turned out I ended up running with beanie and gloves on for the whole race.

Around 9.15 we were told to start making our way to the buses to drop off our bags and craig and i went our separate ways, wishing each other all the best. Another loo stop and then walked down to the starting corrals with the excitement building all the time, the national anthem was played, the fighter jets came overhead and it was ready to begin. interestingly i didn't have any real pre race nerves, i think the excitement was just to great and then we were on our way.

Race time 3:02:32 5 minute pb.

5k-20:28
10k-41:11
15k-1:01:58
20k-1:24:14 Loo stop in this 5km
HALF-1:28:44
25k-1:45:30 hip started playing up
30k-2:07:58
35k-2:30:37
40k-2:52:51
42.2k-3:02:32

Got into a good rhythm early and the km's cruised by, did lots of hand slaps to the spectators who were very enthusiastic in their support, one thing I didn't get around to doing was getting my name or anything Aussie on the shirt but anyone with a name on their shirt got even more encouragement.

First half on the race, felt really good, my main concern was that i needed to go to the loo from about the 3km mark despite having been 4 times before the race, cold weather and my bladder don't go well together. Eventually gave in and at around the 18.5km stopped off, went and also put back on my patt strap which had fallen off early on, so had one of my bandages but i didn't want to waste any more time so I just held onto it. Based on km splits, this cost me about 1m 30s. Settled back into a rhythm once I got back running, unfortunately I didn't get to handslap or smooch the girls at the college as they were on the right and my pitstop had been on the left so watched proceedings with amusement and went through the half way mark at 1:28:44, did some quick calcs and was confident that sub 3 was still well and truly achievable. I'd had about 3 drinks at this stage, few sips in the cup and quite a bit on my face :).

Around the 23km-24km mark, my left hip that had been playing up earlier in the week in New York and which flared up again on Saturday started hurting again and made me slow down a bit, maybe the nurofen i'd taken before the race had lost its effect. The hills not that they were much came into play and it became a bit of a grind. I felt myself drifting into 4.30 splits as even though it was painful, it was manageable, however when I tried to speed up, the pain increased significantly so I eased back to the 4:30's.

Heartbreak Hill came and went, not much to report on there other than it wasn't much of a hill and I kept on thinking to myself there must be more but there were huge cheers as we reached the top. A number of people had started walking and i wonder whether that was more a mental barrier than anything else. Realised around this point that i needed to speed up a bit to get to sub 3, so tried for a few hundred metres but once again, it was too painful so eased back. Did some more calcs to see what I could do if I kept at the 4:30 pace as well as what I needed to do for a pb and then went into auto pilot determined to finish and do a decent pb.

Had a snake, only had the one for the day and a couple of drinks at the drink stations, walked through these and made sure I had the full drink and was on my way. Passed a lot of people over the last 8 or so km and only got passed by a few and was happy to come around the corner into the last straight at exactly 3 hours. The last few hundred metres seemed to take forever as the finish line seemed like an optical illusion and was very happy to finish and still in tact.

Found Craig fairly quickly who ran very impressively for a 3.01 especially considering his knee issues and little running over the last few weeks, so a very big congrats to him. Then found the girls who were ecstatic to see us in one piece, had some photos taken, Trace had bought an Aussie Cape with her and wrapped it around me and then we limped back to the hotel.

Physically felt pretty good after the race , i've been lucky in that I always seem to feel pretty good after the run, other than the obvious sore legs and a couple of blisters, ran in the Asics DS racers and they were great, will run future races in these for sure.

Trace and I caught up with Craig and Tiff last night for a few drinks and Chinese and had a great time, hope you guys have a great rest of your holiday.


So overall pretty happy with yesterdays effort, prob 8/10 and wouldn't change how I ran the race, I don't feel as though i went out too fast, even though times may indicate otherwise as I didn't run out of steam. It would have been nice to have cracked sub 3, it's just a pity that the loo stop and sore hip cost me any chance of doing that but at least I'm heading in the right direction. I'll start running in the next couple of days and then plan my next Marathon, will it be Perth, Gold Coast or Melbourne, lets see how the training goes before making a decision, I'm just a little wary of how close the first two are.

Had a great time In New York and Boston, off to Washington in a few hours and then Atlanta,Los Angeles and Las Vegas, should have a great time in each and will get at least a couple of runs in each place.

Thanks to everyone for their best wishes and support.