Race report by Janet:
What an experience. Boston has been amazing. I get it now. This city loves the marathon and embraces all who run it. After arriving last Thursday we spent 4 days exploring the city, visiting Harvard and eating our way from one place to the next. Lobster rolls, stuffed clams, Boston cream pie and beans to name a few. Good recovery fuel and prep! We managed a park run at Jamaica Park, along with about 400 other marathon runners (Sally won her age category!), mostly Brits and Sally did a breakfast shakeout run organised by Runna, whilst I tried to rest my legs from all the walking and the blue bike hire on the Emerald line cycleway. The whole city was now geared up for the marathon and the atmosphere built as more runners arrived and the Boylston street finish line was set up. We visited the expo on the Friday and the atmosphere was buzzing, we spent a small fortune on the blue and yellow unicorned gear too. Got to love a unicorn. The expo really celebrated the fact that you had qualified for Boston and there was a lot of cow bell ringing and whooping! It genuinely made my nerves disappear and I began to fully look forward to it.
So onto the marathon itself. It was established in 1897, with tough qualifying standards which makes it an aspirational race for many runners, its the world’s oldest annual marathon, traditionally held on Patriots’ Day, on a bank holiday Monday. The course is renowned for being difficult and hilly but how bad could it be? Was it over hyped? The short and rather painful answer is no. It was very tough.
So, Sally waved me off on the Monday morning and i boarded the iconic yellow school bus, and along with 30,000 other, mostly international runners I made my way to Hopkinton, a 60 minute journey to the start of the linear route back to Boston. The weather was cold but bright and sunny with a helpful tailwind. There was definitely a buzz of anticipation.
Time passed quickly and rather aptly I had a Green bib, which was the second to last group to start at 11am. We walked a mile through the town and it’s beautiful New England houses with pristine front yards to get to the start line. People and their dogs sat watching us in their front yards as we all filed past and signs told us there was only 27.2 miles to go to Boston. It was all very calm and relaxed, everyone was smiling and excited, and then we were off.
The first section went steeply down hill and then a little bit up hill, then down again and so on and so forth for the next 26.2 miles. There was a lot of down and I tried to steady myself but the problem with ups and downs all over the place is that you can’t quite find a rythmn. I soon realised this was going to be tough and that I perhaps hadn’t quite got my training right but it was too late now and I was just going to go for it and give it my best shot! I must emphasise there was not a flat section. At all. You were either running up or you were running down and your quads do not like this! However, the route was brilliant, town after lovely town with amazing support along the way such as the Wellesley scream tunnel where hundreds of college girls line the main streets and you can hear the noise over a mile away. Things were going well and I was loving it.
I knew the famous Newton hills were coming from 16.5 until mile 21, with the final one aptly named Heartbreak Hill after the 1936 marathon, where Ellison “Tarzan” Brown overtook crowd favourite, Johnny Kelley on the ascent, “breaking Kelley’s heart. ‘ But just How hard could it be? I quite like hills. They didn’t look very steep compared to Horwich. Turns out I had underestimated this too. I think there were four hills, I can’t be certain as by this point I really began to feel the effects of the previous 16 miles of ‘rolling’ hills. Added to this, I’d confused myself with the fuelling, dropped a salt tablet and forgot to take two gels and things began to rapidly fall apart by mile 21. I knew the last part was mostly down hill but my legs just wouldn’t go any faster and I felt the familiar stab of cramp at about mile 22 as we came back into Boston. By now the crowds were going wild, eye of the tiger playing, confetti canons, humorous signs that said this is the worst parade ever! So I looked around, smiled, powered up by hitting the cardboard signs (they definitely don’t work Phil!) tapped numerous outstretched hands, gritted my teeth and tried to settle into a gentler pace as others pushed on past. Including the lady I’d started next too. i gritted my teeth again and on I trundled, I could now see the huge Citgo sign (another famous landmark) and I knew that was mile 25. The course was still unforgiving on tired legs and there was a final steep up and down an underpass before the final turn onto Boylston street. The noise was deafening and as I rounded the corner I knew there was 600 metres to go and I could see the finish line. Now I just had to get there. One step at a time. I was so pleased to hear then see Sally just after the finish line. I had done it! With a lot of help from a very supportive friend! I had no idea about my time but was really pleased to have finished in 1 hour 37 minutes 10 seconds. Just over a minute off my PB and still a good for age qualifying time, if I ever decide to do one again. Spoiler alert. I will. I would definitely do Boston again. My quads are wrecked, I can barely walk, getting up requires a hoist and I’m supposed to run London on Sunday. We shall see…. Thanks for reading this far!
