The Full Story…of the 26.2

I really had no idea what I was get­ting myself into when I started the Boston Marathon.  I knew I trained harder than I had ever trained before, tapered, and carbo-loaded bet­ter than before, and hydrated well (drank my tra­di­tional gal­lon of water the day before the race). I packed warm run­ning clothes, chem­i­cal hand warm­ers, thought I was pre­pared. I fig­ured that any­thing I did wrong would be made up by the fact that I’d have thou­sands of fans there to pump me up, and my adren­a­line would kick in.  I planned to start out slow, run­ning about 8:00–8:30 pace in the first few miles, then slowly bring it down to 7:50… then race the last 5 miles as fast as I could.  Lit­tle did I know what the next 26.2 miles had in store for me…

The Race Begins in Hopkinton

We woke up at 4am to get to the race.  It was quite an adven­ture just get­ting to the start line, get­ting to the buses down­town Boston, rid­ing for an hour to Hop­kin­ton, and wait­ing in Athlete’s Vil­lage until the race started.

Wait­ing for the Boston Marathon to start in Athlete’s Vil­lage, Hopkinton

My race started at 10:20am, as I was in the sec­ond wave of run­ners.  Every­one was lined up by what ever time they had qual­i­fied with — I was run­ner #12321.  I kept my sweats, long sleeved shirts, and jacket on because I was afraid of shiv­er­ing my energy away. (Our coach had warned us to stay as warm as pos­si­ble).  The start­ing cor­rals were sort of crazy, with so many crazy run­ners packed in, and fran­ti­cally try­ing to find their spot in the cor­rect cor­ral.  Finally the race started.

Start of the Boston Marathon (pic­ture from Endurance Sports http://endurancesportsnw.com/blog/2011/05/jeff-martins-boston-marathon-race-report/)

Sure enough, the ENTIRE CITY came out to cheer us on.  Thou­sands of Bosto­ni­ans lined down the marathon course, 3–4 peo­ple deep in some paces. It looked like they were all there to watch the Rose Parade. I couldn’t help but start to cry, because they looked so proud. It was such an honor to make these spec­ta­tors happy, and be part of their tra­di­tion.  But they weren’t just watch­ing… they were going nuts!!

Even with all the adren­a­line, about half way I was winded, and my legs started to hurt. I started think­ing I wanted it to be over. I couldn’t set­tle into a good pace — as soon as I’d pick up my speed, I’d nearly run into some­one. (Learn­ing to dodge peo­ple dur­ing a race is some­thing I need to work on!) But I said to myself, you gotta see Rusty (my coach), make him proud. Be strong. I passed Wes­l­ley, and all the girls cheer­ing, and that was uplifting.

I wore my name tag on my shirt, and tons of peo­ple yelling “Go Jill!” How­ever, I felt the most encour­aged when I saw peo­ple I knew. We were so for­tu­nate to stay with fam­ily, David and Bar­bara Spin­ner, and they came out to cheer us on, and I saw them just when I needed to: right before Heart­break Hill. They were hold­ing a helium bal­loon so I could spot them as I came down the road. It was hot. I totally missed my coach Rusty, and my pace dropped from the 7:50s to 8:20s… I was think­ing just get through the hills and then bring it home.

The Last 5 Miles

After the top of Heart­break, I started fly­ing down past Boston Col­lege, and was feel­ing like a rock star! I was run­ning a 7:05 pace!! I thought, only 5 miles to go, I totally got this, and thought I’d fly home. But just about 4 miles to go, my quads felt totally thrashed, and each step was extremely painful! I started check­ing my breath­ing to see if I was winded, and I was feel­ing weak, I was los­ing gas, and was scared I wouldn’t have enough to fin­ish. I saw my run­ning friend Jay at mile 24, and yelled, but he didn’t hear me. The streets were packed with run­ners, and the crowds were going nuts!! The T train was pac­ing with me for a while, then passed me.

Even with all the sup­port I just wanted it to be all over. And I wanted to fin­ish strong. I looked down at my watch ad could cal­cu­late that I wasn’t going to PR, but at that point I didn’t care, I just wanted it to be all over! I just wanted to fin­ish strong, I knew I could pull out a sub 8:00 mile for the last mile. I wanted my last mile to be sub 7:00, but it wasn’t easy. I remem­ber going down­hill and pick­ing up some speed, and then I lost it com­ing back up. I made a right then the final left onto Boyl­ston, and gave it all I had. I had I keep look­ing at my watch, to hold myself account­able. Some­times the watch said sub 6 minute miles, and some­times it said sub 7 or 8.  It was excru­ci­at­ing, but it was almost over. I finally saw the clock, it was 3:59:42, so I sprinted to the end, so my pic­ture would look like I broke 4 hours! (Even though this clock was from the start of wave one, and I was in wave two).

I fin­ished in 3:36:28 and stum­bled through the fin­ish­ing area. I wanted so badly to sit down, but I knew it would be hard to get back up again to find my hus­band. I was very light­headed, and really exhausted. I got my bag, and wan­dered around for nearly an hour look­ing for my hus­band who had started before me in wave 1.  I went to the hos­pi­tal tent to find him, think­ing, “If I’m feel­ing this bad, Doug MUST be in the med­ical tent.” The med­ical per­son­nel looked up his race num­ber, but he wasn’t there. When I finally made my way through the crowds, and back to the fam­ily areas, get­ting lost mul­ti­ple times, I finally found Doug.

I hugged him, think­ing he prob­a­bly had run just as bad of a race as I had — I thought — my mis­ery had finally found com­pany. Then he told me his time: 2:58 — I WAS SHOCKED! This was the time he was shoot­ing for, to break 3 hours!  I was so sur­prised and happy for him!

Then he asked me how I did, and I burst into tears, so ashamed of myself and not get­ting a PR like he did.  He was so sweet to hold me there, shiv­er­ing in the wind, until I could pull myself together. I guess I was feel­ing pretty bad, even though those last few miles I didn’t care about any­thing but just that it would be over soon!

It was his day. And I am so proud of him. I remem­ber think­ing wow, I don’t want to run his course again, I’m not happy. Then when I fin­ished my hus­band said “I want to do this course again. The water sta­tions every mile really helped.”

Doug and Jill after fin­ish­ing the Boston Marathon

The Play by Play: Aver­age Minutes/Mile

Final Thoughts…

I built this race up so much in my mind, think­ing I would be on a mag­i­cal cloud 9 dur­ing the race. How­ever, I had no idea how gru­el­ing the course would feel on my body! Those down­hills tore my quads to shreds, mak­ing the last 10k of the race extremely painful! I was happy to walk away with neg­a­tive splits, but sorely dis­ap­pointed not to get a PR…Seems like the road to get­ting PR in the marathon is long, espe­cially when it takes mul­ti­ple marathons.

Now that I’ve com­pleted 3 marathons, I want to cut back and focus on my goals in the 5k, mile, and half marathons. I’m feel­ing inspired to chase my dreams of break­ing my PRs in the shorter dis­tances. I always wanted to break 20 min­utes in the 5k, and 6 min­utes in the mile. Look­ing for­ward to get­ting some speed in my legs, and bring­ing this speed into the marathon, and hope­fully get­ting my PR in the 26.2!