Guest Blogger: Scott’s memories of the Boston Marathon

Writing about Boston:  (5-22-2010)

I know, I know, I am a slacker – but I am stuck in the Wichita airport and since there is nothing to do, I decided that it was the perfect time to write about my experience at the Boston Marathon.

Now I say my experience “at” and not “running” because the Boston Marathon is more than just running 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston.   It is a whole lot more.   My experience started when I qualified to run at the National Marathon back in March of 2009.  The next step was to actually register and then wait.  Registration opened in September and we (when I say we, I mean my personal assistant – Jenna) submitted the paperwork – electronically (green-minded as I am) and then we waited.   A few months later, I received that wonderful notification that I was in – Hurray, I was scheduled to run the Boston. 

As April 19, 2010 –(day of the marathon) drew closer, we started to make travel plans.  Having never been to Boston and not knowing much about the city – where to stay / not to stay, Jenna had a tough time working the lodging – when she finally worked it out, she booked us in the Omni Parker House Hotel, just across from the commons.  We also had other options, but that is another story – ask Jenna about it.  After searching for flights, Jenna finally booked me on a direct flight from Charlotte to Boston on Friday the 16^th.  I was to arrive by 3:00 p.m. - Meanwhile, Jenna was trying to work out her travel plans.  Jenna wanted to support her best friend Bonnie Anderson at her daughter Amy’s wedding in Seattle on the 13^th or 14^th  but was torn on how to do that and be in Boston that weekend.  So after many, many on-line hours of searching and comparing prices and times, it was decided to by 3 on-way tickets, one from Greenville to Seattle, one from Seattle to Boston and then the 3^rd from Boston to Charlotte.  It worked out great.

Training for the Marathon wasn’t as good as it could have been.   It started off in Myrtle Beach when we tried to run the marathon in February, but snow caused the cancellation of the marathon. Without hype and the adrenalin rush that comes from racing, we still managed 26.2 miles anyway.   I was so bummed because I was ready to quality for Boston again for 2011 in Myrtle Beach.   However, Jenna being the wonderful wife and friend that she is found and registered me for another Boston qualifying marathon in Albany, Georgia – side note, Jenna ran the ½ in Albany and did a great job.  We made plans and were off to Georgia to run and qualify.  The course was really flat and not many people (about 500 runners) but it was great weather and we had a decent race and when I finally crossed the finish line I had a time that would qualify me to go to Boston again 2011.   So with the pressure off, I decided to run Boston for fun and enjoy every bit of it.

The month between Albany was filled with a sore right knee.  I decided to rotate my shoes from my new Asics to my old Brooks and guess what, my knee was less sore and I felt all better.   But because of my sore knee, the longest run between the Albany marathon and the Boston was 16 miles -   oh well, I believe that you need to play what you are dealt. 

Now- back to the story.   I had an uneventful drive to Charlotte and caught my JetBlue flight to Boston – I love JetBlue, they offered real snacks and as many as we wanted and even gave me the whole can of juice without asking.  The seats were wide and with enough leg room to even stretch out.  I landed in Boston and got a train pass and headed toward the Omni Parker House.  I checked in and had a very nice room.   Jenna wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another 3 hours, so I started walking.   I just started wondering the streets of Boston, from the north – to the harbor and over to Fenway, it was nice to get out and roam the streets. While I was walking, I called Steve Cahoon, a friend from High School that lives in the Boston Area.  I really hadn’t talked to him much if at all in 20 years, but we decided to hook up and talk for a bit.  (Steve had extra tickets to the Red Socks game but gave them away a few minutes before I called. – Next year, Fenway and the Socks are on the schedule).  Anyway, I met Steve and his son and talked for a little while – set up time to go to church with him on Sunday and then I needed to hustle back out to the airport and meet Jenna. 

Jenna arrived on time and now that I had been in the city a few hours I was an expert on how to get around - The reality of it is that the transit system is great - a 3-year-old could learn and become an expert in a few hours.  Anyway, learning to get around Boston was a confidence booster for me.  So Jenna and I hopped on the subway and made it to our hotel and flopped on the bed – it was a long day, but we needed to get some food so we headed up the street and ate in a small local establishment (ok bar, but bar sounds bad – so establishment it is)

The next day – Saturday, we decided to go to the expo and walk the Freedom trail.  The freedom trail is a red brick path that takes you around the city and allows you to see the major sites in Boston.  We had a great time and had an authentic Italian lunch right across the street from the “Old North Church”.   We saw the USS Constitution “Old Iron-Side” and then ended up at Bunker Hill and climbed the 300+ stairs to the top of the “Washington Monument” looking tower and had a great view of the City.  Again the day was drizzly and cool, but that didn’t dampen the great time we had.  We took the train and arrived at the Expo in time to see some of the exhibits and mingle with the over-abundance of runners.  We ended up purchasing an official “Boston Marathon” running jacket.  I believe that the best part of the expo was the 15 minute video of the course and commentary from famous runners – it was so inspiring.  By this time my pre-race jitters and butterflies were turning into excitement.  At 6:00 pm the doors to the expo closed and we were ready to head back to the hotel.  On the way we were able to walk across the finish line – snap some pictures and get psyched.   I remember standing on that line and getting a little misty eyed – I blamed it on the rain.

            That night, we elected to take the train across town and eat at “Legal Sea Food”  it was great!  The wait for a table was a couple of hours, but we opted to sit at the bar (eating at a bar twice in as many night – I hope this isn’t a habit) and in less than an hour we were heading back to the hotel. 

            Sunday we got up and headed out on the train to be met by Bishop Steve Cahoon – It happened to be stake conference so we went to the church by the temple – a gorgeous setting, the large temple on the hill with the chapel off the hill.  Again it was misty and cool.  After conference, Steve invited us to his house for a brunch meal.  On the way to the house, we drove past Mit Romney and his son’s home, quite nice in a very nice part of town.  We then proceeded to go to Lexington/Concord where the famous battle took place.  As we stepped out of the car, you could almost feel the sacredness of the land – it was an awesome feeling.   That night we skipped the pasta dinner and ate at Bertucci’s. It was now just several hours before race time and the excitement that overtook the butterflies were giving way to more butterflies and my tummy was jumping up and down.  

I got a decent night sleep got up, ate some food, and headed to the buses to take us out to the starting line 26+ miles away.  The weather was perfect, even though the prediction was cold and misty, it turned out to be cool and clear with a slight tail wind – perfect.  I decided to carry my new little toy – the Flip video recorder on the run.  My plan was to document the race at every mile and video anything else that struck my fancy.  On the bus to the starting line I sat with Kyle from Chicago who was running his 1^st Boston as well.  Kyle had never run any hills what-so-ever – the Boston may have been an eye-opening experience for him.  We arrived at the gathering location - the athlete’s village as they call it, it looked more like a city.  There were 25,000+ runners and helpers mingling around the Hopkinton school, in the tents, and waiting in line to use one of the hundred’s of outhouses.

I was curious to see the starting line, like I wasn’t going to see it in an hour or so anyway… well, I walked the .75 miles to the starting line and got more excited and then retuned to the city of runners.  When I arrived back with the masses, I found a nice place on the asphalt around the school and lay down, rested, ate some food and waited.  After about 45 minutes, we heard the announcer indicate that it was time to head to the starting line.  I don’t know if it was nerves, excitement or the meatballs and pasta that I had the night before, but my stomach was just churning.  With one more visit to the blue portable relief station and we were off to the starting line.  On the way we dropped our bags on the busses and hoped our gear would be waiting for us at the finish line – it was.

            After the .75 mile walk to the starting line, (that’s right .75 +.75 + .75 = 2.25 miles further than I should have gone) we arrived at the corrals.  My number was 9385 – that means that my time was 9,385 fastest of the total field that registered. With a 9,000 number, I was in the 9^th corral – along with 1,000 of my closest friends.  We huddled together and waited some more.  I met some people from all around the country – from Boise to Tampa and even from Seoul Korea.  A few minutes before race time, they sang the national anthem and then there were 2 F18s that had a fly-by …. Totally cool.  Did I mention that my stomach was still doing flip-flops?  Oh well, ready or not the gun fired and we didn’t move and it took about a minute before we even started to walk; for the next 6 minutes we walked up the hill and enjoyed the rip roaring pace.  Almost 8 minutes from the starting gun I crossed the starting line and we started to move. 

The first part of the course is down hill and within the first ½ mile we came to a wooded area where the foliage was being watered by more than 100 contestants.   I thought about it and then continued on.  A few minutes latter we came to a short hill, the fans were cheering us on and some spectator who lived on the hill set up their stereo and was playing the rocky theme song -  among a chorus of “Adriannnnnn” we ran up the hill.  By mile 2 we were still packed together pretty tight and I was running a little slower (7:53) than I had planned (7:40) – but I was close to my time, so I wasn’t going to risk getting my legs tied up with someone that I was trying to pass, so I settled in and we ran.   

The crowds were awesome, the people were 2 and 3 deep on most of the course – and they were loud and very much into the race.  I tried to hi-five as many as I could, but later in the race, I realized that my hands were sore from all the slaps.  The crowd continued to cheer and be very, very loud.  In fact, by mile 20, I was thinking that it would be nice to have a little quiet where I could concentrate on my misery. 

The first 12 miles were fairly uneventful – I was having a great time and was feeling pretty strong.  This is where we started to run down the slight hill next to Wellesley College where a very large gaggle of co-eds line the course and were loudly cheering and offering kisses to racer that would stop.  I was having a ball watching the older men go up to the girls and getting a slight peck on the cheek while the younger more attractive male runners that stopped seem to get kiss on the lips – go figure. I pulled out my camera and videoed the spectacle and stayed far enough from the girls to be out of range but close enough to video. 

We kept running.  Jenna said that she would be waiting just before the Newton hills at mile 16-17.  When I saw her my heart jumped for joy.  It was nice to see a familiar face.  I stopped long enough to get a picture and a short video and a kiss and I was off up the hills.  Jenna was to meet me at mile 23, but I didn’t see her so I kept running. – That was a low part of the race.

At mile 20, I remember coming to heart break hill and thinking, just keep your head down and get to the top.  I looked about 10 feet in front of me on the ground and saw that I was passing people – cool.  I knew the hill was only about ½ mile long – which meant only about 300 paces.  Up to this point, my stomach had been jumping and at each port-a-potty that I passed, I debated whether or not to stop – anyway by the time I reached the top of the hill, I was pretty tired and look in a full cup of Gatorade and started down the back side of Heartbreak hill.  2 or 3 minutes later, I knew that I did a bad thing by taking the full cup of fluid because my stomach started bubbling and the burps starting coming and I knew that I was going to barf.  By mile 23, I couldn’t hold it in any longer and pulled over on the side of the course and began to spewing my insides out.  I was trying to keep the fluid off my feet, off the millions of runners and off the spectators -  I was mostly successful. But I was left feeling pretty bad.  I started running again and a few minutes later, I knew that I wasn’t done spewing.

Between mile 23-24 I usually have some strange thoughts go through my head – (D.C. – boy I love the way my tights hug my legs – just one example).  This time it was not different but I believe it was more relevant that my legs getting a nice warm hug.  I was struggling and throwing up every mile or so and now was not having a great time but this epiphany spurred me on.  I was having a hard time making it to the end of the race and even though I was surrounded by thousands of others on the same course, and I had more than ½ a million people cheering for me, I felt completely alone.   I was thinking that this is like life, there are so many people going through life and we can be completely surrounded and still feel alone.  What I needed on the course was someone next to me, someone who is my friend and willing to help me along.  Now don’t get me wrong, it is great to have some stranger shout and cheer “you are doing great!” Or “You can do it!” but there is something to be said for someone right next to you traveling with you heading in the same direction.  This is where I realized that sometimes we just cheer others along by saying you are doing great and let them go on their way – when what they really need is a friend to help them reach their goal.

At mile 25 there is a slight hill up on an overpass, 2/3 of the way up, I felt that spewing feeling coming on and reached the side of the course and empted what was left of my stomach right there at some spectator’s feet.  I apologized and walked the rest of the way to the top of the incline.  With about a mile to go, I was determined to finish strong and started running for the finish line.  I didn’t care if I was going to puke again, I wasn’t going to stop or walk.  As I turned the corner onto Boyle Street, I thought, how many people I can reel in - and started running harder.  Not one runner passed me in the final mile and I passed more than 100 runners.  As I crossed the finish line I took 5 or 6 walking steps and started to get light headed and wobbly, just as a volunteer reached me, I managed to spew, one last time all over her feet.  I would have felt bad, but I was too tired and I had just finished the Boston Marathon.  It was sooooo cool, even with a 3:42 time (my slowest marathon yet) I had a great time, and the tears flowed – this time I had to blame it on the sweat.

The finishing shoot was pretty strange, the volunteers just kept the contestants walking down the chute and as we walked they put on our medals, space blankets, handed us a bag of food and kept us walking.  I was looking for the tents where I was going to load up on carbs, but it never showed up.  By the time that we were out of the shoot, we were to the bus with our personal belongings.  I put on my sweats and coat and called Jenna and told her that I would meet her back at the Hotel. I walked the mile back to the hotel and sat in the racers lounge in the lobby where water and oranges were plentiful. About 30 minutes later Jenna and I were together again.

After a shower, we were off to find some food to eat, nothing really sounded good so we ended up at Wendy’s at the finish line and had fries and a frosty.  Later that night we went to Ruth Chris’ Steak house and had a victory meal.

The next day we flew out and made it to Charlotte and drove home, what an experience, I loved it and hope to do it again next year…..