Well, it's done. I am officially a marathoner. I am tired but extremely happy at the same time. It may well be the hardest thing I have ever done, but what a rush to have done it.
This will probably be long, so I am expecting to break it into parts, but you never know. So we got to Boston on Saturday afternoon and spent the afternoon with one of my closest friends, Tara, who ran Boston herself in 2002. She also ran it coming off a knee injury, so had a really good sense of where I was at and what I would need to worry about. So we spent the day with her and her kids just enjoying the afternoon and talking about the marathon. Her advice was awesome, but it also made me realize that I knew the course a little too well. In many ways, I think ignorance is bliss when you think about putting yourself through 26.2 miles of hell. Not knowing whether the finish line is just around the corner or the hills are over gives you strength to keep going. But when you are standing at the bottom of the endless series of hills we loosely refer to as Heartbreak, and you know exactly how many there are and how long this thing really is... well its tough to keep the spirit up. So I knew this was going to be an issue. I needed a little more ignorance. But I decided to just literally not think about it. So after getting my sage advice from Tara I literally just pretended things weren't actually happening at all. Denial can be your friend sometimes, right?
Sunday we needed to go into the Hynes Convention Center to get my bib and all that jazz. I also really wanted to get a race jacket, but was feeling a little supersitious about it. I just didn't have any other time to do it, so I had to suck it up. We got off the subway and it was like the marathon itself was in progress right there. Because it was. On the one hand it was cool to see the women's Olympic Trials and all, but I am not sure it was the best idea to bring all 30,000 entrants to the regular marathon up against all the cheering crowd for the Olympic Trials all in one little space. It was overwhelming. And I have to tell you, at that point, I hit melt down. It was too many people, too loud, too difficult to get into the Hynes Convention Center itself since the subway pops you out a block away and you have to cross the street that is blocked off for the race. I was already nervous enough and that about sent me over the edge. The Convention Center itself was no better. It was wall to wall people. Bathroom lines were unreal. Number pickup was chaotic. Overall I felt like I had my invisible cloak on again and people were just plowing into me-- I felt like a pinball and just couldn't stomach it long.
When we got to the goodie bag pickup where you also get your teeshirt, of course, womens smalls were out. Honestly, most people running marathon distances aren't XXLs. They aren't even Ls. Most are comfortably smalls or mediums. So why not have more of those sizes. Nope. No small. I had to grab a medium, which will be a little big for running in-- its loose enough to chafe. That stinks. But so be it. It's almost always the way it is. From there we found the place to get the jackets, so we went over and found that you had to try on one of the samples to request the size from the counter. That was even more chaotic since everyone wanted a jacket and all the women wanted the same size so we just had to wait. There wasnt much of a system-- no line or anything, so whoever got the attention and won the favor of the woman running the station first, got to try on first. It drove me crazy and took forever. But we finally decide on a small for me. Go figure. So we go and talk to the lady at the counter. And here's where I finally got my crankiest. When we were talking to the lady as she was waiting for my small she was saying how much she wanted to run Boston but had not made qualifying time. For those of you who don't know this off the top of your head, for women 26-34 (I believe, I may have the years a little off), in order to qualify to run Boston you have to run a qualifying marathon in 3:40:00 and under. Seriously. No freaking way. So a lot of people don't qualify in and wind up running for charities. This is a great way to keep money coming in for charities, so there are a lot of charity spots. I'd guess its probably half and half charity and qualifying times. So when the lady and I are talking about how she didn't qualify in, I told her I didn't either-- I was there with a charity. Her response. "Well, congratulations anyway."
Huh. Interesting. As if my accomplishment of getting there was any less. As if I hadn't done just as much hard work in my training. As if I did not deserve to be there. And it really irked me. Cause the thing is, I wasn't out there running as much about my own vanity, or chasing down my youth, or whatever else might be a narcisstic approach to wanting to do this. Nope, I was there out of blood, sweat and tears, trying to do something good for people other than just me. It wasn't entirely about me... which is something that not a lot of qualifying marathoners can say. For them, the race is entirely about them. For me it was about the kids and mothers I was trying to do something for while putting everything I had out there for it. So congratulations anyway, my butt. I trained for 5 hours when the qualifiers did it for 3. I was putting in twice the work, twice the time and a lot more other side jobs of raising funds. And while I don't think she intended the comment with malice or even intentional disregard, it was clear that there were haves and have-nots in the athletes. And this theme was going to come up a few more times for me in the course of the day.
From there, we met one of my all-time heroes-- Dick Hoyt. If you have ever seen Dick Hoyt pushing his disabled son Rick through countless marathons and Ironman Triathlons, you will know what I mean about hero. I started watching him on this course when I was a kid. And his son was a kid too. Now Rick and I are both grown up... and Dick is still out there pushing Rick through countless marathons. And he does so faster than I could dream of taking my own self, much less another full grown adult. So getting a chance to get both an autograph and a chance to talk to Dick just before the race was awesome and inspiring. It made my day and will be something I cherish throughout my running career. That part was awesome.
When we left the Hynes shortly thereafter, it was still chaotic outside and this really was the first time I could feel the panic of the next day start to settle in over me. I was freaking out and I knew it. I needed to spend some time with my best friend Kelly. So we called her and met her for brunch. Kelly is my touch stone in a lot of ways. She can even me out when I am freaking out. So spending some time with her was awesome. She calmed me down quite a bit. Afterwards we met up with my folks and left my car at a strategic subway stop so that the getting out of dodge the next day would be relatively easy and stress free. Mom and Pop then drove Marisa and I back to my hotel room where we spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening just relaxing, keeping my denial going, watching the movie Amelie (one of my favorites) that I keep on my iPod and attach to the TV, having some dinner that Marisa made for me, and getting to bed early. I had a big day and I needed the sleep. And much to my surprise, the denial worked and I fell asleep without really realizing that the next day was going to be anything along the lines of a marathon.
