Niagara Falls Marathon 2014 Pre-Race Report

To quickly summarize, I finished in 3:25:48.  I knew within the first 3 miles that 3:14 was going to be doable as the pace felt a bit too hard.

Going into the race, I still had some hesitation about my goal time.  While I had picked 3:14, I wasn't sure with the wind if it was going to be possible.  Added to that, I wasn't sure the speed was going to be there.  I've basically been doing my long runs a bit faster than 9 min/miles, but reading back through my blog, I noticed that in years past that towards the end of training, I was doing them closer to 8 min/miles so during the taper, the two long runs I did, I tried to do at 8 min/miles to see how it felt.  The first one was an 18 miler on a hilly course and the second one was as the 1:45 pacer for a half, the week before the marathon. Both times, my legs were a bit sore after. Looking back, maybe I should have done my long runs at a bit of a faster pace. 

Arrived in Niagara Falls and went to pick up my bib.  They had moved the expo. It used to be at the Skylon centre, but I think there were a lot of complaints about having to pay for parking so they moved it to a Shopping Mall about 9km away from the hotel.  Though the free parking was nice, I'm not sure it really worked.  You had to pick up your bib and clear immigration at one point of the mall, where they gave you a bag, you then had to go to another section of the mall to pickup your shirt and then you had to go to another section of the mall to pick up the "swag".  Of course no one mentioned the shirt or swag to me when I picked up my bib and I only stumbled across it as I was wandering around looking at the vendors who were are crammed into the aisles of the shopping centre, kinda like a sidewalk sale of running related stuff.

Going into the race, I spent a lot of time reading my previous race report from the last time I ran the Niagara Falls marathon and had hoped to repeat everything down to a tee. I stayed at the same hotel, and partook in the race pasta dinner.  A few things were different though. I think last time I was upgraded to a "Falls view" room which faces the falls. No such luck this time, I got a room on the third floor that faced a wall. No natural light whatsoever. Whatever, not too important for me and what I was expecting based on the booking. Last time, the pasta dinner was at the Crown plaza which was the hotel next to where I was staying, but this time they moved it to a dinner theatre place about a 5 minute walk away.  They had an inspirational speaker who talked about Rick and Dick Hoyt and they even played the "I Can Only Imagine" video.  I've probably watched that thing over 100 times over the years, but it still makes me feel emotional when I see it. There were quite a few people reaching for napkins to wipe their eyes after the video played.  They also had a U2 cover band play, but I kinda felt bad for them. Dinner started at 6:30 and they started playing at 8pm.  By then half the people had left. I stuck around for about 7 or 8 songs or so and by the time I left there were only a spattering of people remaining. Went to bed about 10:30 and prepared my stuff for the following morning.

Race morning gear, including passport

So race morning comes and I follow the pre-race ritual I did last time.  Heading down to the busses for the trip to Buffalo and tried to avoid the buses with Japanese tourists since my comments the last time about US immigration taking longer with such busses. In hindsight this was a mistake. At least with the Japanese tour group, you know that the tourists are going to have the right paper work because the tour group organizer makes sure of it. Normally, what happens, is the US immgration guy gets on the bus, collects everyones passport verifying that the passport matches your face, goes off to have them scanned and then returns and gives them back to us. For the japanese tourists, before the collect the passport, they take a bit longer to flip through the passport to make sure all the paper work is there, but it will be there. As it turns out, I ended up on a bus with a single Australian runner who did not have the right paperwork which meant the whole bus was held up as she was taken inside to be processed with the right forms.  The marathon website make this clear that you should get this paperwork done the day before the race. They should require non-NA runners to acknowledge this when they register.  We ended up being the 3rd last bus to arrive, but that was only because one other bus had a person with a similar issue and the last bus was the late late late bus which picked up any stragglers.

So by the time we arrive at the race start, there was only about 35 minutes to race time which basically means that my pre-race routine that I wanted to follow that I did last time wasn't going to happen.  Didn't even have time to go into the art gallery as I immediately had to start lining up for the portapotties since I'd been sitting in a bus for almost 2 hours by that time.  By the time I got out of the portapotties, there was about 20 minutes to start time and I needed to do a bunch of things, like find water for my HR monitor strap, load up on the nutrition, get a satellite lock for the GPS watch as well as change out of my warm up gear and drop the stuff off at the bag check.  The satellite lock took a loong time. Even standing still out in the open, it took a while.  I guess when you're located in a place that's over 150 km away from the last time you used it, it takes a while.

As for gear, even with the supposed wind, it was predicted be around 7-10C which meant sleeveless T weather.  A lot of people were wearing long sleeves and pants and I knew that it was going to be too warm for that stuff.  I should probably mention that while reading my previous blog posts, I realized that I wore the same sleeveless T for my two previous BQ's so I ended up wearing this time too. Superstitious, I guess. So after getting a satellite lock and changing out of my warm up gear and taking some time to collect my thoughts, there's about 10 minutes to start and I didn't have really do much of a warmup.  Basically my warmup consisted of about a 60 second jog to some bushes to answer nature's call one last time.  I really wanted to do a proper warmup like last time including trying to get my HR to spike, but there really wasn't time. Headed into the corrals where there was a moment of silence for the solider killed in Ottawa, the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. I looked around and the fastest pacer they had was a 3:30 so I was going to have to do this on my own.  I had a 3:14 self made pace band that contained mile splits and 5k splits. I picked up a 3:20 one at the pace expo, but that was in km and not miles.  The course was marked in miles with 5 km splits so the 3:20 band which only has odd numbered km splits (1,3,5, etc) wasn't going to be too useful.  Plus, in my haste, I ended up leaving it in my bag anyways so I didn't have it. 

So I line-up trying to get my nerves and hoping to hell that my HR wont start racing and I wait for the gun to go off...

Scotiabank Half Marathon Pacer Report

Did the Scotiabank Waterfront half marathon as the 1:45 pacer again this year.  This is the 6th year that I've done it.  Wow that's seems like a long time.  In previous years I've had to do the run/walk thing and in talking with the pace bunny organizer last year, it was decided that it would be switched to a continuous one this year.  I think when I first bunnied this race, the Running Room were going to be the original sponsors of the pacing team and there was a desire to provide as many run/walk bunnies as possible since the Running Room is a big fan of the run/walk system.  The biggest questions I've gotten in years past was whether there was a 1:45 continuous bunny and so finally I wouldn't have to answer that.

As a pacer, the sponsor, Brooks provides a free uniform which consists of a bright neon green T-shirt, a pair of shoes, a hat, a pair of shorts and a pair of socks.  I didn't actually get the socks this year. When we went to pick up the gear, the only socks they had were white socks with pink trim which were supposedly for the women.  Oh well, not  a big deal.  I decided this year to order one of the most expensive shoes they had as my free pair.  In previous years, I just got the Adrenaline GTS which is the Brooks shoe that I'm most familiar with, but last year when I almost pulled out of pacing, I realized that if I pulled out they were going to charge me $150 so if that were to happen again, I was going to make sure I got my money's worth so I ordered the Adrenaline ASR GTX which is a trail shoe which retails for $180. It's supposed to be waterproof and has Gortex material in it.  I think it will make a good winter running shoe and it looks cool too.  I also looked at the Brooks Transcend which is $190 shoe.  It's a stability shoe but is extremely light.  Maybe next time.

As Brooks is a sponsor, each of the pacer's is obligated to do an hour shift at the Brooks store at the Expo. I ended up going down Friday night after work.  We had our own little pacer booth setup with couches and stuff near the exit where we would answer questions.  I had a few people commented on the continuous switch this year so it appears to have been a sticking point with people.  Also had dinner with Alex and his wife who were up visiting while doing the Detroit marathon.

I spent sometime this year studying the elevation profile prior to the race.  In previous years, I just used the garmin to target about 7:40 min/mile pace for 10 min and then walk for a minute.  This generally worked out well, though I think last year, some of my miles were a bit fast.  This year, with being able to run continuously, I decided I was going to run more by effort level and adjust to the course profile. I headed into the corrals with about 10 minutes to start. This year we were given very specific instructions of which corral we had to be in and where in the corral we should be.  Apparently, there were complaints last year about bunnies not being in the right corrals. So I had to be at the back of the first corral, and the 3:30 bunny was in the front of the second corral even though technically we should be running the same pace. The start of each corral was separated by 5 minutes.  I decided to wear both the garmin and the polar watch again this year.  In previous years, I used the garmin to do the 10 and 1 countdown and monitor for pace and used to polar to see how I was doing overall. 

So as the gun goes off, we start off on University Avenue, heading north which is on a slight incline.  I figured out that the first 3 km should be the slowest of the race.  During the first km, I started to feel my HR strap starting to slip down. I distinctly remembered to tighten up the strap about 20 minutes before race start since that was the one thing I wanted to avoid and here it was slipping down. I usual try to grab the strap and yank it up, but when I tried to do it this time, I ended up unhooking it and it came completely undone.  So I grabbed it before it fell to the ground and started carrying it in my one hand. The other hand of course is carrying this big honking pacer sign and realizing that I only have two hands, I started thinking how the heck was I going to drink at the aid stations without slowing down.  Thankfully a woman running behind me recognized what had happened and she pulled up beside me and offered to carry the sign for me while I tried to get the strap back on.  Thank goodness for the kindness of running strangers. 

 1km: 5:13

Hit the first km at 5:13 which is a tad slow. I didn't really get a chance to warm-up and there wasn't any jostling for position, but I guess the first km is a little uphill and runs around the queens park circle so I suppose there's some ground that gets lost if you aren't running perfect tangents.

2km: 5:00
3km: 4:59

The 2nd and 3rd km are basically right on pace though I suppose effort wise they may have been a tad fast since these km are also on a bit of an uphill.  Crossing past the 3rd km we head south towards the lake on Bathurst. At this point, I announce that we are going to be running downhill and picking up the pace a bit. 

4km: 4:48
5km: 4:46
6km: 4:45

These 3 km are south on Bathurst and involve about a 90 ft drop in elevation.  I tried to keep this under control by not speeding up too fast and the people running around me didn't seem to be breathing too hard so I think the effort level was good.  I ended up running down the middle of the road between the streetcar tracks which was different than in year's past where I had to run off to the side due to the requirement of walk breaks which could potentially interfere with others when done suddenly.

7km: 4:55

Km 7 is technically downhill too but involves a brief climb over a bridge over some railroad tracks.  I had to back off on pace on this climb which is a bit steep, but it immediately descends again right after this.

8km: 4:55
9km: 5:03

Continuing on km 8 and 9 are on Lakeshore Blvd going west and are generally flat.  There was a little bit of wind here and I had to pull down the sign and carry it closer to the body for a little while. 

10km: 5:01 (Split of 49:25)

The 10th km involve a bit of a climb over an overpass and then an immediate descent right after.  I cross the 10km at 49:25 which is a 4:57/km average pace (should be 4:59) which I think is about right given that this is net downhill from the start. This represents a bank of 21 seconds.  Marathon Photo has a video at the 10k split and looking at it, there's a pretty big group that's running with me, much bigger than in year's past when I was doing the run/walk thing.



I pass at about the 19 second mark wearing the neon green shirt and carrying the sign.

11km: 4:52
12km: 4:56

Kilometeres 11 and 12 continue to head west into the wind. Km 11 seems a bit fast though this include the downhill at the Canadian Legion building on Lakeshare so I suppose it's probably about right.  During km 12 my HR monitor straps starts to slip down again and it comes undone.  I ended up catching it again and end up carrying it the rest of the way.  I know the woman who had helped me before was still running beside me, but I decided that I didn't want to bother her again with my problem. I ended up just bunching it into my hand and holding it with the sign so it wouldn't be too difficult to drink at the aid stations if need be.

13km: 4:58
14km: 4:54
15km: 5:03

Km 13 includes the turnaround portion and now we are running with a tailwind.  Things are clicking along as they should.  Km 15 includes the uphill at the Canadian Legion building and I tried to slow down a bit on this climb, but it seems to have been a bit fast.  I think I checked my watch around this time and had about 20-25 seconds still banked.

16km: 5:01
17km: 4:59
18km: 5:01
19km: 5:01
20km: 5:00
21.1km: 5:29


I think it was after a hill that I caught a glimpse of a race photographer.  As a pacer, it's hard to get a good pic cause usually you're surrounded by people and it's hard to be on the lookout for them. I don't really have a good picture of me running as a pacer in the past. I think however this was might be pretty good.  It looks like I'm smiling and just cruising right along, though it's hard to tell because the proof image is so small on the website. The other things is that the woman photobombing me on the right who has her hands in the air like she's about to get arrested is a little distracting.

The rest of the way was pretty much exactly on pace. I was trying to bleed off a bit of the 20-25 seconds, but I didn't want to bleed off too much. It's hard to rely on the garmin after km 17 since you're running close to the tall condos and running under elevated road ways so the garmin isn't providing accurate pace feedback. At this point, I few people doing the full marathon pull up to me and ask about the 3:30 bunny.  I inform them that he started in the corral behind us and is technically a few minutes behind me. I probably should have made an announcement about the 3:30 bunny while I was in the corral at the start telling them to move back if they were looking for a 3:30 marathon finish.

Passing by km 19, I still had quite the group with me, though a lot of people had speeded up to finish faster. I commented into km 19 to the people who were still with me, that I expected everyone there to finish ahead of me. Coming up to km 20, almost everyone took off to finish faster.  In years past with the 10/1 thing, almost everyone takes off during the last walk break and I end up running with no one for the last little bit. Sure you end up passing people and people are passing you, but they aren't technically running with you.  It seems the same thing still applies when you're running continuously. Everyone wants to start with you, but no one wants to finish with you. Passing by the 20 km marker which is just outside of the Air Canada Centre, I knew I still had about 20 seconds banked and I knew I wanted to try and bleed off about 10-15 seconds of that going up Bay St. which is on a slight incline.  While running under the train tracks just south of Front St, I was passing by a runner who seemed to be breathing pretty hard so I was trying to motivate him to stay with me by counting down the minutes and seconds to the finish line. He ended up passing me with about 100m to go and I didn't end up getting to slow down at all going up Bay St and ended up finishing at 1:44:42.

So that's basically it.  I considered this a good pacing performance, much better than last year when I did a few miles at too fast a pace, even though my finish time last year was closer to the goal time.

Weather for this was pretty good.  Not too cold, not too windy.  In year's past, I would stick around to watch the marathoners finish, but this year, I ended up leaving right after the race cause there was one week to my own marathon and I didn't want to be standing around and risk catching a cold.  

Day 2

More scenes from Big Sur...

I realize that I forgot to put up the slideshow of the remaining pics from the Big Sur marathon so here you go.


Picasa Link

And as promised here are some quick video clips from the race.



Youtube Link

2010 Big Sur Marathon Report

Short story is I finished the Big Sur Marathon in 4:51:44. Had a great time. Perfect weather.I'm not sure I will have a lot to say.  This is one of those cases where pictures are worth a thousand words.

I arrived in San Francisco the Friday afternoon and drove to Carmel-by-the Sea. The weather wasn't so great and it was raining. Saturday things had cleared up and was looking to be quite the weekend. Steve who had the distinction of being the last official finisher of the 2010 Boston marathon came down from San Francisco and we caught up. Steve also introduced me to Hansi who is a 60-something runner who was also doing the Boston 2 Big Sur Challenge. She's actually quite fast and finished 4th in her age group at Boston and would end up finishing 1st in her age group at Big Sur.  Thanks to Steve for the picture.

Steve, Hansi and Me

 Went down to the expo to pick up my bib and bought some stuff at the expo.  I purchased some salt pills cause I thought they would help to try and avoid cramps.  I had bought a salt shaker while in Vegas hoping to increase my salt intake over the days leading up to Big Sur but when I tried, I just couldn't eat salt straight or even mixed with gatorade. Tasted too salty!  Ha. I suppose that was the point. Much better to just swallow it whole.

Went to the race sponsored pasta dinner and headed back to the hotel to turn in for the night. The buses to the start line would start leaving at 3:30am, with the last bus leaving at 4:15am and therefore required a very early wake-up call.  I had been trying to stay on eastern time so this wasn't too difficult.

Rode the bus to the start line staging area.  Still really dark outside.  Wandered around a bit, used the facilities and ate a bagel. Sat down and tried to collect myself.  Then headed to the start line.

Start Line

My original pie in the sky goal was to beat my time in Boston so I had a 4 hour pace band and positioned myself near the 4 hour pacer.  When the race started however, I had to immediately reconsider my goal.  The first little bit of the race is on a downhill.  I hadn't run at all since Boston and though I was feeling fine walking around the day before, it became immediately clear as soon as I starting running that my quads had not fully recovered.  They were achy.  Not painful mind you, but achy.  This was a new experience for me.  Realizing that I was about to run 26.2 miles on a hilly course with achy legs, I turned to plan B which was simply to finish.  I decided to run as slow as I could and then walk for a minute after every mile marker. 

Running!

There goes 4 hour pacer

Rather than stick to a fixed schedule, I ended up just walking whenever I felt like it.  This would happen for pretty much the whole race.  My achy legs never quite got better, but they never got worse so i suppose in the end it worked out well.  The mile markers in the race were quite humorous at times. Some with interesting sayings or jokes.

It's funny cause it's true!

At each mile marker, they would have volunteers calling out split times, average pace and expected finish times.  I got a picture of every mile marker except for the first one so rather than post all 25 of them, you can see them as part of the picture slide show below. The finish times being yelled out started out at 4 hours but would slowly start to increase.

There were a lot of musicians at the race, playing all types of different music. I've got some short videos of some of the musicians which I'll post later after I get them uploaded to Youtube.

Harp player

 The first little bit of the race is actually through a forest area so the view though scenic for a forest isn't that great.  The view however does slowly get better over the course of the marathon.

First scenic view of the ocean

So the race continues on. I had worn my Boston 2 Big Sur shirt and it was pretty amazing getting lots of cheers from fellow runners yelling "Go B2B".  Two girls who were doing the B2B had worn their Boston bib on their backs.  During one of my walk breaks, i encountered one Korean fellow wearing a B2B shirt (you can see him below), he was stretching out his back.  We would play leapfrog for most of the race.  The last I encountered of him he was really hurting.  I sure hope he was able to finish.

 There aren't a lot of spectators on the course, other than the musicians and at the aid stations, but with the scenery, there sure is a lot to look at. 

Blue Girl- Body paint or special type of sun screen?

So there's a first hill right during mile 9.  Mile marker is sorta funny.

That Pinocchio!

It's funny cause the hill to end all hills begins soon after this.  The hills leads up to a point called hurricane point which is quite far up.  The grade isn't so bad. I've run steeper.  It's just that the hill is so darned long.  You can get a sense of the hill from this picture.

Those little specs are people

At the base of the hill, they have people beating rhythmic drums to try and get you to charge up the hill.  

Photo op!

You then proceed to spend the next 2 to 3 miles climbing up to Hurricane Point.  They put a nice sign at almost the top of the hill for you to get you picture taken.  If you're racing up the hill, this certainly is the correct description.

It's funny cause it's true!

After you crest Hurricane Point, there's a slight downhill to the next interesting point which is the half way mark and Bixby Bridge which is famous for having the Grand Piano and a pianist playing.

I gotta run over there?

Once you get to the bridge, you encounter the wonderful sounds of a piano playing all sorts of different types of music.  You can see my previous post for a video of the piano player.

Getting closer...

I'm here!

 I'm not sure when i crossed the half mark.  They had a timing mat there, but they don't seem to have published split times.  I seem to remember it being between 2:20 and 2:30 which seems to coincide with the drop in heart rate on my monitor when I stopped for 5 minutes or so to record the video and enjoy the piano a bit. At this point, I remember thinking that beating 5 hours would be a doable goal.

Some more scenery.

Those Kenyans

More scenery.

More piano playing.  Not quite the same, but he was quite good!

Up until this point, I had been doing the walk and run thing and it had worked out quite well.  Somewhere during this time, I encountered Jeff Galloway and his group.  Galloway was doing a run walk thing and was aiming for a 5 hour marathon.  I would leap frog with him for a little while but I realized that my legs weren't getting worse so I thought it might be possible to bump up the pace a bit.  I would still do the walk breaks but would be a little faster on the run portion.

hmmm, strawberries.

Continued on and as I pass the 26 mile marker, I decide to bump up the pace a bit trying to pass some people so that I can position myself so I can get a nice finish line picture. All of a sudden, I guy I had passed decides he doesn't like being passed and starts to run faster to pass me. I suppose the testosterone got the better of me and I turned the jets on. When he realized that he couldn't stick with me, he just yelled "screw it" and slowed down.  My finish line pic looks like I'm grimicing in pain, but I'm actually laughing at the whole situation. 

So final finish time of 4:51.  Got my medals, my bib and the jacket which I quite like.  Ended up wearing it around for the next few days even though it was clearly too warm to be wearing. I bumped into a few others wearing the jacket in the days following and we would nod our heads acknowledging each others achievement.

Jacket

Went to the post race party and met up with Loves2Run.

I really had a fun time.  Not quite sure that it's better than Boston.  Sure it's more scenic and more interesting than Boston, but the fans are what makes Boston great.  I do however agree with Bart Yasso in that if you could only do one marathon in your lifetime, it should probably be Big Sur.  Would I do it again?  For sure!  I just don't think I'd do the Boston 2 Big Sur thing again.  In fact, almost all the B2B participants I talked to afterward said they would never do it again. Mind you, this was mere hours after having completed it so understandably people have no interest in subjecting themselves to the feeling again.  Given time, they (including me) might change their minds.

As you can tell from the pictures, it was almost perfect weather.  Not a cloud in the sky.  The sun was beating down on us for most of the race, but the breeze coming of the ocean helped to keep us cool  I ran the race with a white long sleeve t-shirt and think that was the right call.

Very challenging course. Couldn't imagine trying to race on this course. 

Well that's about it.  Spent a couple of extra days in Carmel, Monterey and then San Francisco.  You can see more pics from the days follow below.

Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon

I don't have much to report about Las Vegas or the Grand Canyon. I would have liked to spend more time in the Grand Canyon. I didn't realize that there's a lot stuff to do there other than look at the Canyon. I'll just leave you with a slide show of some pictures I took.



Picasa Link


On to San Franciso and Big Sur!

2010 Boston Marathon Report

How do I start?  It seems I have so much to say regarding the two marathons.  Boston marathon finish time was a 3:57:58.

Arrived on Saturday. If I had to do this again, I would have arrived earlier in the day. By the time, I had checked into the hotel, the expo was close to closing for the day. Though I probably would have been able to pick up my bib, I would have ended up going back on Sunday anyways to check out the expo which is fairly large. Saturday night, had dinner with Lee and Yumke and their significant others.

Come Sunday morning, the BAA 5k is run which I went out to watch last year, but decided not to this year. I had a number of things to do starting Sunday which included picking up my bib, checking out the expo, going to the RedSox game, eating the pasta dinner and attending a church service.

Last year, on my way to the Hynes convention centre through the Prudential Center which is an indoor shopping mall, I stumbled across a little catholic chapel that's located right in the Prudential Center. It’s literally right beside where you enter the Hynes centre to pick up your bib. It looks out of place. Guess what the name of it was?

St. Francis Chapel

Last year, I took this as a sign from above that I should probably attend a service at my namesake chapel prior to my first Boston marathon where I would attempt to run a negative split personal worse time.
Considering that it seemed to work last year and that my training this year hadn’t gone as well as I would have liked, I thought I would head back for some heavenly intervention.

During the service, I noticed a woman across the aisle wearing a Boston 2 Big Sur(B2B) T-shirt. The Big Sur people had bribed the B2B participants by promising us a free Runner’s World book if we wore our training shirt to the expo. I'm all for free stuff so I wore it. Talking to the race director at the Big Sur booth, he said he was tired of hearing people at the Boston expo say they couldn’t do Big Sur because it interfered with Boston. It was his intent to try and get a bunch of people walking around the expo with B2B shirts so that he could point us out whenever someone complained. Seems like a good marketing strategy. I ended up chatting with my fellow B2Ber after the service as we made our way to pick up our bibs.  As it turns out, she was not only running Boston and Big Sur, but she's doing a third marathon the week after Big Sur as part of a marathon maniac meet-up.  That's hard core!

So picked up my race packet and checked out the expo. I ended up buying a race jacket. Though the one from last year will always be special since it’s my first, I really don’t like the colour and don’t like wearing it in public unless it’s at a race. My plan was originally to not buy a jacket in Boston since Big Sur is giving us a special jacket for doing the two races so I thought that could be my official 2010 race jacket. However, the Big Sur race director was telling us that the jacket was navy blue fleece. I wanted something a little more water proof so I ended up buying a black one that can convert to a vest. I think it’ll get much more use.
Went to the official pasta dinner on Sunday night. Sat with some nurses from California all doing their first Boston. Though I’m no Boston veteran by any stretch of the imagination, I did my best to explain the Boston experience to them. Headed back to the hotel and went to sleep at around 11pm.

Sunday morning, met up with Lee, Yumke and Soran and headed down to the buses.

Waiting for the buses

Though we had qualified with much faster times, Kenny and I were trying for a 3:40. I had thought this would be a relatively easy pace. We had decided to start at the back of the first wave which seemed like the best option since everyone in the first wave would have qualified with a 3:35 or better.

Back of the first wave

 

So the jets flyover and the race starts.  Before we actually cross the start line, there's a lot of walking.  It takes us about 10 minutes to cross the start line and then we are off.

Looking behind at race start

Yumke, my running compatriot

So we were motoring right along at the start and clicking off the miles, feeling generally good.  Though we had both decided to bring our cameras along, Kenny had gone the extra step and was actually tweeting during the race, including a pic of me downing a beer.  I had grabbed it with the hopes of sipping on it for a while, but all I could hear were the college kids yelling "Chug, Chug, Chug" and so I obliged.  Some other sights from early in the race.

Bandit in a suit

Taking a quick break

There must be an interesting story behind this sign

Chicken on a bike

Santa and a slightly overgrown elf

Steve (far right, almost out of pic) and Mike who pulls an oxygen cart behind him

Wonder where it leads?

Homer!

So right before the half is Wellesley College which as you may or may not know is famous for its female spectators offering kisses to all-comers.  I commented last year of making the mistake of tearing through this without stopping.  This year I stopped and managed to get a video of the experience, so here you go.  Be warned though, you may get some motion sickness with all the bobbing. 

Youtube Link

Even with the two stops, I still sped through and got through the whole thing in about 2 minutes.  Ended up having to wait for Kenny at the end.  Oh well, I'll get it right eventually. 

We end up hitting the half at 1:48:55 which is about a minute faster than we were expecting.  We continue clicking along for a while.  More pictures.

Canadians!

Entering Newton (and the hills)

By the time we started into the Newton hills, my quads were starting to tighten up.  They were starting to get achy. Usually, I don't feel this way until after mile 20 and then it's usually after I've been doing full on marathon pace.  Considering I was running slower and was starting to ache at mile 17 or so, I was starting to get concerned.  I knew at this point, I was going to have to back off a little bit and so the pace slowed down.  My goal at this point was to get through heartbreak without having to stop and then figure out what to do from there.

Music

More Canadians!

More bands!

So we made it up the Newton hills and up heart break and at around the 22 mile point, we took a walk break. I had thought I could do a 10/1 run/walk thing and tried to start up again soon thereafter, but my quads were close to cramping at this point and with all the downhill running ahead of me, I thought it would be a bad idea, so i started walking again.  I told Kenny he could go on ahead and so we said our goodbyes and he took off.  I ended up walking most of the last 4 miles with the occasionally slow jog just to keep the muscles moving.  During one of my attempts at jogging, my quads seized up and I had to grab the spectator barrier to stretch it out. I continued to walk. At this point, I was eating anything that was given to me: Orange slices, little candies and a Recess Peanut Butter cup. I remember thinking that was the best piece of chocolate I had ever eaten. I had hoped to run the last mile in, but I continued to walk.  I did mange to run the last half mile including the turns from Commonwealth onto Boylston, including the last little bit at a quicker pace.  So happy with that.

Finished!

Here are some other pictures from Boston.




Picasa Link

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I had a miserable last few miles, because I didn't. I had a grand old time. If I didn't have to do another marathon in 6 days, I probably would have been able to just run through any difficulties, but with another hilly marathon looming, I thought it best to err on the side of caution. I did cross the finish line with my arms raised and a slight victory smile.

So looking back now, I realize that I had done a lot of things differently this time around.  My training wasn't close to where it should have been.  I did a 12 week plan with a maximum of 55 miles, but a lot of the weeks were in the mileage of low 40's.  I also didn't take any salt pills.  I had learned this lesson the hard way back in 2007 and for every marathon since that day, I have consumed salt pills in the days leading up to my marathon.  I didn't do that this time around and I'm fairly certain that is what led to the quads cramping. Also, I've also not been sticking or foam rolling my legs as much lately. I tried to foam roll my legs in the days leading up to the race and it hurt like hell. Gotta work on that.  

One thing I learned is that I think I ended up staying at the hotel (the Back Bay Hotel) with the perfect location for wave 1'ers. I was pleasantly surprised after picking up my gear and hoping to find an alley where I could change when i found myself standing outside my hotel.  Even though the hotel is quite a ways from the finish line, since they force you to walk down the street to get your medal, food and gear, the actual exit of the finish line staging area for the wave 1'ers just happened to be right where my hotel was. It also has the benefit of being across the street from the massages.  I skipped the massages and rather headed back to the hotel for an ice bath.  On to recovery. 

Next stop, Las Vegas.