If you ran 2010 Boston Share Your Experiences Here

What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? Oh wait....wrong Boston story.

In short, my experience this past weekend was remarkably frustrating.

I started to feel achy on Friday when I got to town, but I brushed it off as fatigue from work, traveling, life, etc. Saturday morning I got up and went for a three mile run, and I felt dead. On Sunday I woke up feeling tired, and decided to skip the run. By Sunday night, I knew in my gut that I was coming down with something, but I did my best to ignore it hoping that I could "will" myself to feeling better.

Monday morning I woke up and felt miserable. I slept like garbage, and was completely void of any energy. Usually on race morning I'm alert, eager and ready to roll. I knew something was wrong, but I was hoping that the excitement, adrenaline, crowds, etc., would push me through the race. The ride up was nice, but I was struggling to stay awake!

Got to the 4000 corral, and went over the plan in my head. I really felt that I was in shape to go under 3:10. It was a very realistic goal based on my previous two marathons, and the training to date.

I made it through nine miles. I was about 30 seconds off my mark at this point, and then I just ran out of steam. I then walked / jogged the next 17 miles back to Boston. It was miserable. I thought about dropping out multiple times, but kept going, convinced that I could get some positive experience out of this situation. When I got to Boston College, I was able to do more running than walking, and crossed the line at 4:18 (to give you an idea of how bad it was, they had already adjusted the finishing clocks to reflect the second wave runners).

I made my way through the gear check, and then went back to my room to shower and take a nap.

I was starving so my girl and I went to Charlie's right by Boylston and grabbed some dinner. As we were walking back to our room after eating, there are still a few people making that final stretch to the finish. We start to hear a bunch of police sirens, horns, and people cheering. I look back and I see this wheelchair participant who is pushing himself to the finish with just one leg. He was severely crippled, and was accompanied by a couple of guides. By this time, it’s nearly 7:00 p.m., and my math tells me he’s been out there for at least nine hours, presuming he started at 10:00. It really put things into perspective, and I quit feeling sorry for myself on having a crappy day. I’m still frustrated, but gone is the anger and feeling of being “cheated”. It's true what they say....no matter how bad you think it is, someone else has it a hell of a lot worse.

I still feel groggy, but gone is the fever. Fortunately my time from Chicago last fall gives me another shot at Boston in 2011, so I'm looking forward to redemption.

Congrats to all the participants. It's an incredible experience, and I'm fortunate to have done it three times. There's nothing else like it, and it's something I'll always remember.

amxnzx wrote:

Great race and congratulations, but get rid of that f***ing Garmin in a race and just run.

I have no idea of why you would be farting around with that dame thing at Boston. Did someone from the BAA ask you to verify the course length?

I agree with this.

In many smaller marathons, the Garmin can actually be quite useful. Not for course length, but for mile splits. I've run more than one in which someone placed some mile markers way, way off. The Garmin can be useful in these situations to reassure you that you did NOT just slow down by 40 seconds in that last mile. (Yes you probably realize this intuitively but in a race your mind can start playing tricks on you, particularly when you are tired...) The Garmin might be off a little (it usually is) but it is also usually quite consistent in how much it is off.

But in a big city marathon, the mile markers are usually extremely accurate. At Boston, they're painted in the road. It's not just some guy who decided to move the mile marker a hundred yards down because that area was in the shade or anythng (something I've actually seen happen!).

If you want to wear the Garmin at a race like Boston, turn off the auto-lap and manually hit the lap button instead.

I use the Garmin to help maintain pace during a marathon. However, like Old N Slow it did bite me in the ass. Next year I'll be turning auto-lap off. I'll have actual lap time on top, and lap pace on the bottom. Two years in a row I've run 26.45 according to the 305. Damn tangents..

There was some wind though, because everyone seemed to keep to the left side of the road, which I believe was to try and get behind the person in front of them.

Also I find that its amazing how many people do not run the damn tangents. They obliviously just run behind the person in front of them or down the middle of the road.

On courses like Chicago and New York the GPS is useless anyway. I've learned my lesson.

Now the wait begins. Do they toughen standards? Their last email said registration will open in September.

Who knew that this thread would rapidly devolve into a dorkfest of underprepared split obsessives?

Another wrote:

Also I find that its amazing how many people do not run the damn tangents. They obliviously just run behind the person in front of them or down the middle of the road.

.

Although I did do tangents, I sometimes intentionally did not and followed the person in front of me just to have them break the wind. I figured the short distance I save but cutting the tangent is more than made up for by the energy I saved by drafting.

My 6th Boston and best time yet by 2 mins. I thought that the wind was pretty "neutral" as they are reporting on MarathonGuide and that the temperature, though good, was not ideal -- it got warm in places, esp with the radiant heat from the sunshine which mercifully was not constant. I can't come close to a PR on the darned course so I don't even try. Love the town, love the event, will go back year after year as long as I can. But I'm looking forward to that nice flat Chicago course already!

Wasn't the temperature fluctuation weird? I noticed that too.

This was my 3rd Boston. I ran NY last year in 2:35 and pr'ed this year in Boston with a 2:34.

Boston is a fast course if you are patient but even if you do run it fast it will take time to recover. I could have run faster but I knew I would be sacrificing my training for Chicago this year.

I do Boston for fun. I think it is the best marathon of all the ones I have done, it is a racers race with a crescendo crowd.

hey Old n Slow,

Thanks for sharing your experience and congrats on a great race!

16 Grams of Protein wrote:

Is it okay to hit a woman if she tells you how many grams of protein there are in the recovery drink she forces into your hand at the end of the marathon?

Hilarious. That drink was disgusting

Thanks for writing up your story! I had almost identical splits to you, complete with the time to make up in miles 21-25, and had a great day with a PR out there. Felt the same way on the last half mile, too...

the gatorade protein drink? that stuff is f'ing delicious.

yankee bean town wrote:

Wasn't the temperature fluctuation weird? I noticed that too.

This was my 3rd Boston. I ran NY last year in 2:35 and pr'ed this year in Boston with a 2:34.

Boston is a fast course if you are patient but even if you do run it fast it will take time to recover. I could have run faster but I knew I would be sacrificing my training for Chicago this year.

I do Boston for fun. I think it is the best marathon of all the ones I have done, it is a racers race with a crescendo crowd.

Have you done Chicago yet? I consistently run it almost exactly 6 mins faster than Boston. Year after year (except 07 of course). The times get better but the gap remains.

Old n Slow and others: here's the wbztv finish line feed. You can check yourself out.

http://wbztv.com/bostonmarathon

disgusted wrote:

Awww, did that put sand in your vag? I thought stories of barely breaking 3:00 were fodder for crap sites like RW. If you're 60+ or a masters female then it would take on a level of respectability. Otherwise, whatever. I guess I should keep in mind that Boston has become the hobbyjogger Olympics. Hope you got a purdy jacket to strut around in.

Silly boy.

Congratulations on gutting it out on a bad day. Also, congratulations for understanding the the courage of others. Good story.

I've been injured all winter. Every step hurt and my fitness was off. Having years of course knowledge helped as did the Runners World article on Scott Jurek on Sunday night. My last bit of inspiration come from the Dana Farber kids right after you run over the Mass Pike as they await the person running in their honor. Any of the dinks that slam the charity runner aspect of Boston are pretty lucky not to face the real challenges those kids and their families live.

Congratulations to everyone. Good day or bad day, it's fun to be part of a world class event.

Great stories. The guys on the Marathon training thread have put up some funny stories as well -

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3501957&page=1

Looks like most struggled in the final miles but few complained about the weather. There were lots of runners covered in salt at the finish, I can't remember if that was normal or not. The race was fantastic and the city is amazing. Not nearly as run-down or gritty as I had expected. Kinda pale though.

Overall had a good experience. 6th Boston and ran my best time there by over 4 minutes so I can't complain too much. I do agree that the temperature fluctuations were strange. There were times that I thought I was going to overheat, and others were I thought it was a little chilly. Overall though the weather was good. Not ideal, but good enough. I agree with most others that the wind seemed to be all over the place, and I distinctly remember some sections of headwind, particularly toward the end. Mostly seemed to be a crosswind though.

Crowds as always were fantastic, that's what keeps me coming back. Will be interested to see how New York compares this fall.

Oh.

scotth wrote:

disgusted wrote:

Awww, did that put sand in your vag? I thought stories of barely breaking 3:00 were fodder for crap sites like RW. If you're 60+ or a masters female then it would take on a level of respectability. Otherwise, whatever. I guess I should keep in mind that Boston has become the hobbyjogger Olympics. Hope you got a purdy jacket to strut around in.

Silly boy.

all you haters of old and slow....and anyone else for that matter,

F*** OFF!