Boston 2010

Boston Marathon 2010.

The big day is over and what a day it was…

Competing in endurance sports brings with it a strange blend of feelings and emotions on race day, and if there was ever an event to stir this up, the Boston Marathon was it!

I have raced some memorable events in my sports career including triathlons, road and mountain bike races, adventure races…now, and again finally Boston - on the 2500th anniversary (so someone told me, can’t take credit for that trivia) of the original marathon in Greece. I can say nothing comes close, of all the aforementioned events, to the euphoria of running this race. This truly is “Big Time”.

I felt a little nervous at the start wondering if the preparation or lack thereof would be enough. And while the “quantity” was there the “quality” really in my opinion left a lot to be desired. However. To stand in the starting pen with arguably the world’s fastest field of marathon runners was pretty neat. Every person at the start (excepting the 2000 odd charity runners), has had to run a tough qualifying marathon in a fast time to earn a spot at the start. That’s what makes this so special, there are no slackers (well, maybe me!) in the field, and when you run low7’s for the first 6 miles or so and the crowd of runners doesn’t thin out, this point is really hammered home.

Now I understand why Boston is truly the holy grail of marathon majors! In most cities events happen and life continues unabated. In Boston, when the marathon happens, it feels like the entire city wraps its arms around the event - the marathon and the city become one crowded, cheering entity. Running past 500,000 cheering, fanatical spectators the entire 26.2 miles is a feeling that cannot be described. Like your first rollercoaster ride - it has to be experienced to be completely understood.

My first objective in Boston was to run, enjoy and complete the event as always. The second was to run it in the time I’d set based on my training, third, today was my mom’s birthday and hopefully looking down on me. This one’s for you mom, and last but no less important was to settle it once and for all with Danny & Henry of course! I am happy to report that I achieved all my goals, thanks to all the fantastic support and well wishes from my friends. Oh, and Wellesley College, wow, what can I say? Where else does a guy get so many offers for free kisses and marriage? And while I was content to high five them all there certainly was enough guy’s taking up the offer of free kisses!

And while Boston is a hard race to pace with a downhill start and finish, and I will admit the euphoria and adrenaline tends to lift one up and often results in too fast a pace for the first half of the race. I knew this, but stuck to the plan as best as I could and felt so damn good for 23 of the 26.2 miles of the race that I decided to go big and push anyway. I run on emotion more often than not and with the thought of my mom and someone else I’ve held special too me…I lit it up as best as I could.

End result was a faster time than in 2008 and of course with the other goals accomplished as well it certainly turned out better than I could have hoped for. Clear skies and tail wind to boot as well. and limp to the finish in 3h 18m. The incredible support of all my made this possible and a big “thank you” goes out to you as well.