Boston 2012

In honor of getting my official invite to run in the elite field at The Woodlands next year, this week's off-day-throwback-race-report is for a race I'll never get an elite invitation to: the honor is to be there at all.

Run April 16, 2012

I'm sure Babe Ruth's move from Boston to New York is the one that really stings, but Boston does not appear to have forgiven me for making the same migration 47 years ago. I first signed up for Boston in 2009 (for the 2010 race) only to get injured the week before the run. The following fall, registration closed in 8 hours (it had previously taken weeks to fill) and by the time I got home from work and logged on to register, I was shut out. With the new registration rules giving priority to runners well below their qualifying time, I was able to secure a spot in the 2012 event and, while I had to manage a few nagging injuries during the 24-week training cycle, I felt I was quite well prepared as I boarded my flight for the 116th running of the world's oldest annual marathon.

I arrive in New York on Friday afternoon and meet my college roommate, Kevin Robertson, who works in the city and will be my companion for the trip. We stay at his house in Connecticut on Saturday and then drive to Boston on Sunday for number pickup. Unfortunately, Boston is always run on Patriot's Day, which is Monday. While the weather is quite pleasant at the runner's expo, the forecast for tomorrow is not looking good. Not only is the predicted high (88F) four degrees above the previous record for April 16, that high is expected to be reached before noon, when even the elites will still be on the course.

The Boston Athletic Association responds to this by pumping out increasingly dire email warnings. First comes one that simply lists symptoms of dehydration and some obvious strategies for dealing with the heat. That's followed by another note encouraging everybody to treat the world's most prestigious road race more like a training run with some verbiage (clearly approved by legal counsel) that if we're too dumb to slow down in the heat, it's not BAA's fault if we falter, faint, or outright die. Finally, a message arrives that all but begs the participants to forget the whole thing and go to the Red Sox game instead. Don't run if you're coming from a cool climate (nope, St. Louis has already seen 90's this year), don't run if you've never run long in the heat (guess they didn't read my Kettle race report from last year), don't run if you're out of shape (it takes some gall to send that one to the field at Boston). Don't be ashamed; we'll not think any less of you; we'll even automatically put you in next year's race, blah, blah, blah. Of course, buried in the fine print is the fact that you'll still be forfeiting your entry fee, not to mention travel expenses. It would basically amount to a $1000 DNS. I don't seriously consider the offer. I don't expect to run particularly well, but that's no reason to quit.

In contrast, over on Attack Point, my manhood is being called into question for suggesting that I might jog this one. While slightly irksome, I've learned not to get too emotionally involved in online forums. At the end of the day, the only person who's going to experience any real consequence, good or bad, is me. I'll start on pace and if it doesn't feel like the day to go, I'll save it for another time.

With all the downtown hotels requiring 2-night minimums at inflated rates, I booked lodging in Worcester, 15 miles west of the Hopkinton start. As I enjoy my usual pre-race coffee and oatmeal on the patio of the plush Beechwood Hotel, I note that race day is certainly starting on a very fine note. The forecast has been revised to a high of 85F. Still a record, but those three degrees can make quite a difference when running. Maybe we'll catch a break.

Kevin drops me off at the parking lot of EMC corp at 8AM where I catch the shuttle to the athlete's village. Although it's just a few miles, there's enough foot, bus, and car traffic that I don't get off the bus until nearly 9. That's fine with me as sitting around in the sun isn't particularly good prep for a hot marathon and the few shady spots were taken hours ago. I put my change of clothes on the bus heading to the finish, keeping just a bottle of water and a Clif Bar for pre-race consumption. Shortly after 9, I start making my way to the corrals, .7 miles away. I get there just as they are calling the elite women to the line. I watch the introductions and start and then find some shade in the little park next to the corrals.

My seed is 2161, so I'm in the third corral. While the official timing is done by chip, I still have it in my head that a finish photo with a sub-3 on the clock would be pretty sweet. Therefore, I'd like to start near the front of my group, in hopes of getting to the start line within a minute of the gun. I jog easily around the park for about 10 minutes and then notice the corral is starting to fill, so I head in at 9:45. I'm able to get fairly near the front, so there should only be about 2000 runners ahead of me at the line. Fifteen minutes in the corral is plenty of time to recognize two things: the temperature over the road is MUCH higher than the ambient temp and, with all these runners trapping the heat, it's going to get even hotter. The announcer implores us to take it easy saying, "It's just not a PR kind of day," and I have to concede the point. Still, I stick to my idea of taking it out on pace just in case the body is up to the task.

The elite men are introduced, the national anthem is sung, and the gun fires right on schedule at 10 AM. Sixty one seconds later, I cross the line. Two years after plan, the last leg of Three Marathons for Carol (my final fundraising event for ALS) is finally underway.

Unlike the other two World Marathon Majors I've done (Chicago and New York), Boston starts on a relatively narrow road. The running is shoulder to shoulder. This is offset by the fact that the field at Boston is seeded by actual rather than estimated times (so there's very little dodging around slower runners) and that the first mile is downhill. The net result is a first mile split of 6:44. The second mile is flat, but the pack is opening up just a bit and I go through in 6:47. The aid station right after the 2-mile split is particularly well staffed and I'm able to grab enough fluids without losing too much time. I get to the first official time check (5K) at 21:16.

That's almost exactly a 3-hour pace, and it's been done with no spikes in effort. While that's normally great news, every other warning light is flashing. I'm completely soaked in sweat. My breathing is closer to what I would expect in a half than a full marathon. My quads are already sending signals that the opening downhill with hardly any warmup was tough on them. It seems awfully early to be throwing in the towel, but it's pretty clear I'm not going to hold this to the finish. There's no chance of placing in my age group in this field, so time is the only goal that matters. If I'm not going to be under three hours, I might as well enjoy the run. I knock the pace back to 7:30/mile and spend the next twenty minutes getting my breathing and core temperature under control.

By the time I enter Framingham (10K), I've settled into the new pace. I'm still sweating a lot more than I'd like but I'm breathing fine and getting enough water and electrolytes at the aid stations. Spectators along the course have also set up numerous ad-hoc aid stations .While it requires some discipline to force down several pounds of water and Gatorade per hour, it's readily available.
Quite a few of the residents on course have also brought garden hoses out to spray down passing runners. While this feels great, it doesn't really have much effect on core temperature. Furthermore, getting your socks soaked when running on hot pavement is a sure way to blisters. Therefore, I reluctantly avoid the showers and settle for soaking my hat at every aid station to provide a bit more cooling.

And the cooling is much needed. While the ambient temperature is still in the 80's, the wind is directly at our backs and moving at the same speed we are. It's like running on a treadmill in a gym with poor ventilation. The air is saturated with the stagnant tang of sweat. There are no leaves on the trees to give shade and the sun is close enough to the meridian that the buildings don't provide much, either. Even with the field spreading out, the temperature over the road continues to soar.
By 20K, I'm starting to feel like this won't be a very enjoyable run even at training pace.

Then, I hear them. It's still over half a mile to Wellesley College, but the screams rise up over the more muted applause coming from those in the immediate vicinity. The young women of Wellesley are taking their job of providing mid-race encouragement particularly seriously in these trying conditions. They are pressed up against the spectator fence for about a quarter mile, each holding a sign indicating why they warrant breaking stride to give them a kiss. They're packed close enough together that it's impossible to read every sign, but I don't see any references to St. Louis or Missouri. I spot one brandishing "Kiss Me I'm A Math Major" and figure that's enough of a common bond. I give her a quick peck on the cheek and am on my way. Silly as it is, it's enough to lift my spirits for the remaining three miles of gentle terrain.

Ultrarunners like to make fun of the "drama" of Boston's terrain, noting that the Newton Hills don't even show up when you plot the course profile on a scale that would work for the Western States 100 or Hardrock. I've engaged in that activity myself, but context is everything. One doesn't run a mountain ultra just below VO2Max. Hitting any undulation 2 hours into a competitive marathon effort gets noticed. Even at my more modest speed, the bumps between miles 16 and 20 are enough to knock me off the pace I've been holding since mile 3. The rest of the field appears to be faring much worse. From the point I backed off to the half, I slipped back several thousand positions. In this four mile stretch, I get them all back and more. My pace is so different from those around me, it almost feels like when a half-marathon field gets merged back in with the full.

At 20 miles we hit the most famous ascent in all of running: Heartbreak Hill. Perfectly positioned just when the race really gets hard, it's a rare case of reality living up to legend. It's not particularly steep, but that's part of what makes it so insidious. To hold pace the whole way up means a prolonged surge at a time when that really hurts a lot. As I'm not really that concerned about pace right now, I just let it slip a bit, weaving my way through the many that have chosen to walk it. Kevin is at the top, but I don't see him among the thousands lining this notorious stretch of road. Just over the top is the marker for 21 miles and I note that it's my first mile over 8 minutes. I run the next one quicker as it's downhill, but I don't fight the fact my pace is slipping again. The difference between a 3:16 and 3:20 isn't particularly important to me and the whole back off strategy only makes sense if I can recover quickly enough from today's effort to use the fitness from this training cycle for another long race later this spring.

The final four miles are basically flat and I jog them in. I'm not passing nearly as many people, which could mean that I've moved back into the front part of the field where people are running better or it could just be that I've slowed that much. The watch is arguing for the latter explanation as each mile is taking around 8 minutes. I cross the line in 3:19:09 (chip time - 3:20:10 on the clock) making it the slowest marathon I've run since 1996, and that includes the brutal Heart of America course run at training pace a month after breaking four ribs!

As slow as it is, it actually turns out to be a reasonably competitive result. I finish 1728 overall out of 22,480 starters (4000 entrants chose not to run), 142 of 2342 in my age group. That's slightly better than what my 92nd-percentile seed would predict. It certainly speaks to the quality of field that 19 of 20 that took the gun find their way to the finish. Typical DNF rates are 20-30% when the temperature is in the high 80's.

Even with less than 10% of the field in, the medical tent at the finish looks like a scene from a war movie. I shudder to think how bad it will be when the bulk of the field arrives. The staff seems to be keeping up though and, thankfully, nobody dies (though same may have wanted to). The rest of the finish area is very well managed and I have no trouble collecting my things and getting changed. I'm not sure if it's a response to the conditions or if it's always this way, but the organizers aren't nearly as stingy with the post-race refreshments as they are at many big city marathons. Still, it's a bit of a madhouse, and I am eager to leave. The post race at small runs is so much more fun. Kevin is finding the metro rail line parallel to the course a bit overwhelmed with spectators and doesn't get back from Heartbreak Hill until half an hour after our agreed meeting time. That has me a bit crabby and it makes you wonder how Rosie Ruiz pulled off her famous cheat if I was able to beat the same train by nearly an hour. Fortunately, Kevin's a marathoner himself and is quick to forgive my demeanor in light of the circumstances.

While it's a little disappointing to return without my coveted sub-3 finish photo, there is some consolation in finishing in an "epic" year. Both at the rest stop driving back to Connecticut and the next day wandering around New York before my flight, dozens of random people see my race shirt and congratulate me on simply finishing, typically adding something like, "That must have been so hard." It was and it wasn't. One thing I've learned from ultrarunning is that you can go fairly fast fairly long in just about any conditions provided you never let yourself get depleted. Getting off the pace early allowed me to run the rest of the course well enough that I brought back pretty much everybody except the folks who are just plain better than me. I hate to call a 3:19 a good run, but the reality is that I think it was. I'm not sure I could have gone much faster even if I had poured everything into it. Perhaps Boston has punished me for leaving, but in the process it's given me a battle scar I can wear with pride.