More details to come. For now, this will suffice. I didn't think I was going to finish. I didn't think I could finish. And the course officials tried to take me off the course twice. But I kept going, dehydrated beyond belief (seven hours after the finish, I've barely urinated at all). And got to the line, running all the way down Hereford and Boylston to do that. Believe me, running half a mile without walking was not something that happened very much in the last half of the race.
I got on the bus a little after 5:30 a.m. after another fitful night of sleep, knowing that it would be six hours before I got to the starting line (Note to self: Don't do that again if you don't have to; it would have been worth it to walk to the Common and take the late BAA bus. Would have gotten more sleep too.) Once I figured out what we were doing after the bus dropped us way the heck away, I got to the AV and found the Dot quickly, just as Amy, Troy and some of the other peeps were arriving. But there were very few there then. That would change. By 9 a.m. the place was wall to wall. My phone said it was below freezing on the bus to Hopkinton. that didn't last either, as it warmed quickly once the sun came up. By 7:30 I was out of my sweatshirt, by 9:30 I was out of the long pants.
Finally, a little before 11, we were called to leave for the corrals. The walk in from the AV is always exciting, more so this time. We had been told at the AV there were no portapotties at the start, only to find the same rows set up at the supermarket as in 2011. The misinformation was a little irritating, but I had done my business at the AV in any event and didn't need them.
Got into the corral in plenty of time, unlike after my wait in line at the supermarket in '11, and my race began at 11:26. I'd hoped to start out in the 8:0x pace range. Traffic was not that bad, and I was able to run pretty freely at 8:4X pace. But I didn't feel like running faster than that. By mile 2, I was pretty certain that my goal of a BQ wasn't going to happen. OK, I thought, let's see if we can do something in the high-3-hour range, similar to Baton Rouge or Bayshore. And I tried to keep my pace in that range as we went through Ashland and Framington. By Natick, I could tell this wasn't going to work either. I stopped at a portapotty (my last diuresis for the next 8 hours or so) and put a quick post on FB that at 15K I was in trouble. Five hours later when I got back to the room I was stunned at the amount of response to that single sentence.
The pace started slacking (over 10:00 in mile 8), but I still got to the half in 2:05, even with helping three Wellesley coeds graduate. One of them kissed me more than I kissed her, which didn't bother me in the least. But I got slower and slower. I could tell I was dehydrating. I could also tell that the sunscreen I applied at the AV was gone. Couldn't do anything about the impending sunburn, but I could drink a lot, and I tried to do that, alternating Gatorade and water with gels to try to avoid hyponatremia. In retrospect, probably just should have guzzled Gatorade like crazy, especially after I discovered that my tube of Endurolytes had fallen out of my RaceReadys. No way to know if those extra electrolytes would have prevented any of what happened, though.
The hamstrings were tightening, too, and the walking bouts commenced in earnest. Mile 15 took almost 13 minutes. Mile 16 was my last sub-10:00 mile. Mile 24 was 17-plus. I just could not go very far without taking a walk break. And two different times volunteers came up to me (while I was walking) and gave me the chance to bail out and hit the medical tent. I thought about it, but I didn't come there to DNF, so I told them I was OK and would finish. I probably wasn't OK, but I did finish. It will surprise absolutely no one to learn that my highest heart rate was at the top of Heartbreak Hill -- until I got to Boylston, when it went even higher. I forced myself to run up HBH without stopping, which probably explains the high HR. And I ran the last half mile or so without stopping, from the Mass Ave overpass down Hereford and Boylston. I was actually running about 8:30 pace on Boylston -- about 17 miles too late ro run the high-3 time I wanted after the initial readjstment.
My two goals for the last 10K were to finish at all, and to finish under 5 hours. I did both, barely. Considering that Stockholm was only 40K and I ran 4:52 there, this was my second slowest marathon, and definitely my warmest. But I got it done, got my second Boston medal, and managed to stay out of the hospital, although it took a lot of postrace fluid consumption before my kidneys produced any urine at all.
Initially I was disappointed in my performance, and it will not go down as one of my best. But it was my toughest. I didn't have the cramps that have plagued me in the past, but I had to dig deeper than I did in Little Rock or Stockholm or even Cordova to get to the line.
The crowd support was wonderful, and that certainly helped me find the will to keep going. Can't tell you how many times I heard "Go Ah-kan-sah," "Go Hogs" "Woo Pig Sooie" and even the occasional "Go Jeff". I high-fived so many people, kids and adults, that my shoulders started to hurt. I tried to acknowledge as many of the shouts of encouragement as I could, even with just a wave (also affecting the shoulders eventually). And I really felt safe. I also felt a thrill early in the race when a spectator yelled out that Meb had won the men's race. I felt a chill then, too, which was the only chill I felt on a 73-degree afternoon that seemed even hotter than that with the unremitting sunshine and very little on-course shade. The humidity was very low, but that may have even made things worse, as my body lost fluid very quickly.
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