2011 Boston Marathon Race Report–Part I

Believe deep down in your heart that you're destined to do great things.
Joe Paterno

As I lay in bed the night before the Boston Marathon it occurred to me that it should be illegal to sleep in the same hotel room with your kids the night before a big race. Mostly because it puts their lives in danger and it would suck to be arrested the night before the big race because you hurt someone when they were being loud and wouldn’t let you GO TO SLEEP.

6:00 a.m. wakeup – headed over to Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee and a quick dozen ‘nuts (just kidding) before meeting my friend Lisa and her brother for the busses. I hadn’t seen Lisa for 30 years. We were best friends in 7th grade when we lived in Athens, Greece. We lost touch when we both moved back home. She found me on Facebook a few months ago and told me she had BQ’d too. We had a blast catching upon the bus ride and in the Athlete’s Village. SUAR was something to behold in 7th grade, let me tell ya. I was supposed to meet EMZ too, but couldn’t find that long-legged wench anywhere.

The weather in Hopinkton was great, but the wind sucked the big one. It whipped around and made me cold.

We kept warm how we could using the potties as our wind blockers.

This is my pre-marathon refugee look. Kara Goucher looks like this too right before she hits the start line:

A favorite friend, Nicky, send me a text at that point. I love her.

Pretty soon, I headed to the start gazing around in the surreal daze when you know something is happening that you’ve been waiting for forever, but you can’t quite grasp that it really is happening. Take it, take it in, I told myself.

We were off. I quickly settled into a Beth pace that involved keeping my cadence quick and light and not giving into temptation to sprint it all out. After all, with 26 miles to go, that’s a long time to be sprinting.

There is always some smart ass at the beginning of a marathon that says, one kilometer down, 41 more to go. And, they think they’re really funny, but really it’s just annoying to me. I’m already psyched out enough about the distance, don’t remind me. I needed to lighten up, right? Which is what I did immediately when this Tarzan guy ran by me wearing nothing but a loin cloth. I watched his ass and balls jiggle for a bit then he was out of sight, but not out of mind.

The truth is that morning I was surprisingly calm. Even though I had no clue if I would complete the race if my hip gave out or how long it might take me (I could only estimate between four and five hours), it was one of those moments when you give into the experience and let go of having to know the ending. It would all be okay.

I hit the 10K mark at about 54 minutes. My favorite cousin, Anna, her husband Jeremy and their sweet boy Liam were waiting. I see them…

Then I do this cool backwards move to cut across the road and get to them without taking out the old guy:

Here I am getting dramatic about something. “Oh my God, like, I might have chipped a nail.”

Then I give the big tackle:

And I’m on my way:

 

Got more shut up and running to do:

I ran on knowing the next place I would see my people was at the halfway. I cruised along nicely confident I’d hit the half in less than two hours. SCORE! For a moment I actually thought I might break four hours in the race. I decided to check out for a bit and put in my music. The crowds were really intense and I just needed a moment….Those Wellesley girls were just around the corner.

Part two, coming soon. Had to do in two sections – sorry. Computer totally acting up. But, stay tuned, it gets a bit uglier.

SUAR