Eddie and I skedaddled from the hotel and walked past the site of the Boston Massacre (symbolism! foreshaddowing!) and onto the buses. The couple in front of me were holding hands across the aisle on the school buses on our drive to Hopinkton. I tried to sleep and I did for a few minutes, but then Eddie woke me up because he hates me and wanted to get an early start on torturing me.
Athletes Village, as they call it, is more like a refugee camp for Type A skinny people. I basically sat under a tent for three hours while trying to eat and stay loose. They have food there, but I just feel more comfortable bringing my own. The best thing I saw were Japanese people dressed up like American cartoon characters. One guy was dressed up like Minnie Mouse and he was in two corals ahead of me, meaning that he was acting a fool, mocking me, and there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it because he qualified with something like a 2:50 marathon (I'm guessing).
Since the temperature was already in the high seventies at the start time, I decided not to wear a shirt. I thought this would keep me cooler, which I don't know if that's true. (Does whicking technology help with that?) But I was sweating while waiting in the corals. I also though I brought sun screen, but I did not. That would prove to be a bad move.
My game plan was to run as fast as I could and say to hell with the temperature. Well that kind of worked. The first mile is always packed. But I just couldn't get up to the 6:50 minutes per miles that I needed to do in order to get my sub 3, so I just decided to run more like a 7:05. After mile 3, I knew I couldn't even sustain that. The train went off the tracks soon thereafter. I should've just enjoyed myself and drank a beer like some of the spectators were trying to persuade us to do, but I wanted to get a good time even though that wasn't possible for me.
The people are really the best part of this race. The runners are all friendly and very fit, so there is always good eye candy. And the spectators are all out there, handing out orange slices or cold sponges, waiving signs, or just cheering us on. I really appreciate every one of them. At one point there were two little girls making up a song about running. I wish I could remember it. It was really stupid and I loved it.I walked a lot of the race, and I don't feel badly about it. When I would take a walk break, I could feel myself already being overheated. People would sometimes cheer me on by saying, "You can do it!" and I would think to myself, "I am doing it. I just need to take a little break right now and walk." Their hearts were in the right place though. It was so hot out there that I never felt wet even though I was sweating and drinking a lot of water because it would just evaporate. I was also trying to hit all the sprinklers along the course that I could find.
I basically just wanted to finish the race. I saved up my energy to run up the entirety of heart break hill. The best part of the race other than finishing was beating Eddie. It's on the internet, you can check it. (Hi Eddie!)
I said goodbye to Boston after eating at Black Rose. I had hoped to re-qualify again at Boston, but I missed it by a good 15+ minutes. And since I can't run another one this spring due to scheduling conflicts and registration for Boston is in early September, I don't think I can run it in 2013, which I guess is fine.
See y'all in 2014!
 |
| My poor feet post marathon. |
No comments:
Post a Comment