Hopkinton

In case you’ve missed my barrage of Facebook updates, Monday was my latest marathon. As I may have mentioned before, I love marathons. Therefore, I try to write down as much as I can remember about them so that I can go back and remember everything. I know, it’s a bit long, and probably not very interesting, so feel free to skim and skip at will. Oh, and I was too long winded to get it all into one blog post, so this one is only the athlete’s village and pre -race. And since Brian says I need to turn the computer off and go to bed, the race part of it will have to wait until tomorrow.

I got up at 530 grabbed breakfast, walked to the T (subway), and made my way to Boston Commons. I had met up with another runner along the way, and we got into the incredibly long line waiting to get into the bus for Hopkinton. There were 3 huge lines, each feeding into about 3 school busses. As soon as one would fill up, they’d drive away and nine more busses would pull up. In spite of how effective this sounds, that line moved remarkably slow.

After piling onto the bus, we were off to Hopkinton. It took about an hour and a half to get there in a bus, and was going to take me hopefully less than 4 hours to get back.

The athletes village was set up on the grounds of the local high school - basically it was a big open field with two big tents, a long line for bagels and coffee, and an even longer line for the hundreds of port-a-potties. Having priorities, I got in line for the coffee first. It was so cold that morning that I had layered in 2 shirts, a sweatshirt, sweatpants and old shoes. And still, my hands were shaking so much from the cold that I kept spilling the precious coffee. I finally managed to get enough down to warm up a bit and I headed towards the portapotty lines. They were massive and slow moving, and I only had about 2 hours to get through them before the race started.

An HOUR later, I made it through the line and the loudspeaker announced that my number group was called and advised to begin heading towards the start corrals. It was at this point that I may have made the most crucial mistake... I was too reluctant to strip down to the sleeveless shirt under all my layers and apply sunscreen. I brought it with me but just couldn’t force my self to expose bare skin to the cold. So I simply changed from my old toss-able shoes into my shoes for the marathon, stripped off the middle layer of shirt (without removing the outer layer), and left my shoes at the clothing donation tent. I kept my sweats on (technically they were Brian’s sweats from college, but I’d long since commandeered them) until a later donation site, and then tossed them just before the start. I also managed to pick up some free gloves (with the marathon logo and HP logo on them) - okay, so I picked up 4 pairs, but they weren’t all for me. I gave one to Jackie (a rheumatologist from Canada that I met on the bus) and one for each of my running partners.) I then took my bag to the buses that would transport them to the finish line. I was impressed with their creative use of school buses for this purpose. Each window of the school bus was labeled with a number range corresponding to our race bib number. After finding your assigned window, you handed your bag to the volunteer waiting inside the window, thereby turning the bus into a honeycomb of runner’s bags. Immediately after handing mine off, I remembered I had accidentally left my pace bracelet in my gear bag. And I’d worked so hard on it, too! Nike had a booth at the expo where you could tell them your goal finish time and they’d print out a custom pace bracelet with a goal pace for each mile based on the actual incline or decline of that particular section of the race. It sounds good in theory, but Boston starts out with a significant decline. And if you run that portion too fast, you WILL pay for it after mile 20 (trust me. My 2 worst marathons were because of the first 5 miles). So, fortunately, I’ve had enough good sense (ie: experience) to look at that bracelet (which recommended an 8:17 first mile!!), scoff and toss it. Fortunately I’d come across a spreadsheet on the internet that did a similar customization of pace for Boston, but seemed like it was created by someone who’d actually run a marathon. So, I’d printed it out, and then coated it with clear acrylic craft paint to make it waterproof, and stitched it onto a velcro wrist band. Yes, I am crazy. But then I FORGOT it in my gear bag!

The first wave of runners started the race at 10. I was in the second wave at 10:30. Historically, there is a F15 flyover at the start of the marathon - and it occurred just as I was leaving the Athlete’s Village for the Second Wave Start. It was neat to see - but quite honestly, only because it is part of the history and the legend of the Boston Marathon. The actual flyover wasn’t all that impressive. Nice for it’s historic significance, but I’ve spent too many years in the Air Force and married to the Air Force and living at the end of the runway of an f15 base in Japan to be all that impressed by 2 planes flying by. (Nothing compared to the joy of 10 consecutive f15 takeoffs at 6 am on a Saturday morning.) Before I could As I began the long walk to the start corrals, chit chatting with random people along the way. For some it was their first Boston, others had run many before. The start corals were amazingly chaotic, everyone trying to sort themselves into their alloted spot. I finally found corral 17 - about 1 minute before the race started - and crammed into it with the other thousand runners assigned. We were packed in so tightly that it was impossible to be cold.

Surprisingly, the race started on time - and it only took me 2 minutes to get to the start.