Boston 2 Big Sur – an untamed runner gone wild

This was my second Boston Marathon. I ran it last year as well. The race itself is arguably the best organized – heck, they have been doing it for the last 113 years! A 5K race starts of the proceedings on Sunday 18^th April. This is primarily intended for the friends and family of the marathon runners. My buddy ran it, so I got a little taste of the spectator/cheerleader experience.

He did pretty well, with a last minute new wind and push.

The Expo – was pretty much a sporting goods superstore and you hear overzealous running shoppers rambling “if I stay here another 10 minutes I’ll be negotiating with the divorce lawyer soon”. Dining at a local “Finagle a bagel” deli later provided some celebrity sighting: Amby Burfoot and Joan Benoit Samuelson (1984 LA Olympics marathon winner and a running legend) among others.

Race day (19^th April 2010) – I stayed at my friend’s place in Framingham this time (unlike last year, when I stayed in downtown Boston and took the bus ride to the start, which is quite an experience of its own). My buddy dropped me near the start at the short-ride bus pickup area and off I went to the Athlete’s Village in Hopkinton. Hopkinton has a bit of a history of its own.

The weather was fantastic and made me believe that God is a marathon runner. All sorts of pre-race nutrition – Bagels, Coffee, Gatorade, Water, Oranges, Bananas… good “all you can eat” breakfast buffet - perfect for any other time than when getting ready to run 26.2 miles :-)

The race: line up according to your bib numbers in corrals. Fighter jets, USA national anthem and a gunshot – off we go. The first couple of miles are smooth and easy, with graduated downhill or flat course. One thing noticeable about this race is that it doesn’t thin out after the first miles because everyone runs pretty much at the same pace in a corral – which actually turned out bad for me, because I wasn’t planning on running anywhere near my BQ time. I had no time goals for Boston really – my plan was to finish “decent” enough to recover for Big Sur just 6 days later. So how did I do? Like an idiot – went out too fast with the crowd. I was at a projected 3:10 marathon finish after the half, when I realized that it would kill me after the hills and was
able to hold myself back eventually.

Emotions run high as you see certain signs on the t-shirts, such as this one:

Everyone has a story to tell.

The spectators: After the see-off by friends and family at the start, it’s relatively quiet for the first mile or two. Boston is a point-to-point course – we pass through 8 towns – Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, Brookline and Boston. Each town has its own way to cheer and celebrate the runners and the race. At mile 4, a spectator cheers people with the famous “Great job runners, you’re almost there!” and all
of us go “Yeah right!”. Even though the race is on a Monday, it’s Patriot’s day, a State holiday for Massachusetts. The marathon is a highly social event for the residents of these towns – they have barbeque in their driveways, offer goodies to runners including beer(!). On top of all, we get boisterous, deafening and vociferous cheering. Kids line up on the sides with their hands stretched out for rolling high-fives, sometimes with water, oranges, wet tissues and candies. If you slow down near them as if to grab one of their goodies, they just rush to you get “picked up”. And the one that you pick from becomes the hero of the moment pumping his arm up in the air.

The scream tunnel, aka “The Wellesley Ladies” – this is arguably the favorite part for most runners of the male variety. Wellesley College is an All-girls College where the students celebrate the marathon by offering free kisses to the runners. They had a bunch of wonderful signs ("Kiss Me - I'm Jewish, Canadian, Lithuanian, Half Asian, from Scranton, a senior, a junior, a freshman", "I majored in Kissing", "I won't tell your wife"). The screams they give out at the top of the lungs could be heard from a mile away – and as you get closer and closer, the “scream tunnel” boosts up your energy and excitement of running this race. If you are feeling a bit tired as you enter mile 12 to the town of Wellesley, you’re guaranteed to leave mile 12.5 with a smile and an extra shot of endorphin.

Miles 16-20: The dreaded Newton Hills. This is where the series of uphills occur. It’s not just one hill, it’s a series of them and they culminate in Heartbreak Hill at Mile 20. I slowed down, walked off the fatigue so I could feel fine after the race. No all-out running this time.

Mile 20-25: The top of Heartbreak Hill is the beginning of a huge party (and cheering section) from the undergrads at Boston College. They are drunk, drunk and drunk. Still chugging down huge beer cups, they cheer us on as if there’s no tomorrow. Some of them offer to run with the runners if they were feeling tired – funny because these eager helpers can hardly stand up on two. Most runners pick up a third wind at this point, but it’s hard if you haven’t trained for the hills. In truth, Heartbreak Hill isn’t really that bad. It’s the series of initial downhills and then undulating uphills that really take a lot of energy out of you. From Brookline on in, it’s amazing to see the size of the crowds and the ferocity of the cheering! I hear so much cheering that I could hardly hear myself think. Downtown Boston has a large CITGO sign that I must have seen at mile 23, with still 3 miles to go. It’s a little disconcerting to see that sign because you think you are almost there but you are not! But it is comforting to hear all this encouragement to get us to the finish.

The finish: I’m chanting in my head “right on Hereford, left on Boyleston”. As we get past the Citgo sign, we all get another shot of energy. Start the sprinting as I see people turning right and finish strong. Finished in 3:27:44, about 4 minutes slower than last year, but it didn’t matter at all due to the next undertaking shortly.

Crossing the finish, you get treated with water, Gatorade, space blanket, the famous unicorn medal and eager volunteers to help you. They direct you to the baggage pickup and family meetup area. I hooked up with my friend and off we went to catch a train to Warwick, Rhode Island.

ASHOK, WE MISSED YOU.

Boston can take a lot out of you if you are not smart – sometimes even if you are – in implementing the time-tested strategy of running it. I wasn’t too smart in the beginning, but thankfully realized that before it was too late. For the days following Boston, my training regimen included a couple of recovery/shakeout runs totaling around 8 miles. It ain’t that easy to run two marathons in a week when you are swamped with work as well. Anyhow, I manage to catch a plane to San Jose, California from New York the Friday (23^rd April) following Boston, get some social action reuniting with friends and get ready for Big Sur.

miles) and fairly steep (climbing about 515 feet) hill between miles 10 and 12 (culminating in aptly named “Hurricane Point”). The rest of the course is no better in terms of elevation change with undulating hills that can tax your legs pretty good. The elevation map is deceiving because it appears that the big hill is the only problem, but when you have to climb 65 feet in 0.25 miles at mile 25, you think you might not make it till the finish line.

I was very happy the way I executed this race – lessons learned from Boston were well-applied here. I stuck with the 3:40 pace group through the half way mark and inadvertently went ahead a bit after that. I hardly walked at this race, thanks to a slower overall pace. The hills sometimes were disenchanting, especially when you are feeling relieved as you crest one getting ready for the downhill only to see the runners ahead of you going up the next monstrous hill.

The spectators are hard to see on this course, considering that it doesn’t go through a lot of civilization. But the organizers put up a great show with entertainers every 4-5 miles, including school and college bands, bagpipers, Grand Piano, the Sambahemians etc. The mile markers are funny too – I remember at least two of them – mile 14 with the picture of a Kenyan and Ethiopian runner pointing at you saying “In our country, we call that walking!” and at mile 25 with the sign of Grim Reaper “The End is Near” – gave some much needed chuckle for most of us trying to hold on to the last straw (to “suck it up and run”) :-). They are actually making permanent mile markers on the road for the marathon – shows how much this race means to them.

It was fun to see a buddy of mine Ken (another B2B runner), who I seem to run into most marathons in the US at mile 25 (he was long done and was waiting for his wife) – he ran with me for a quarter mile, took pictures of me and went back to find the rest of his crew. I carried on the energy he imparted over to the finish line – finishing strong feeling much better than I did at Boston. My finish time was 3:37:42.

B2B Sur runners had a special tent post-race, where they gave us our B2B medal, jacket, refreshments, hookup with the race director etc. Dean Karnazes was supposed to be there too, but couldn’t find him. I also got a very good massage that loosened me up for the rest of the week’s grind with work:

I’m glad I took up this challenge and didn’t break doing it. This has prompted me to go on my quest to be the Lord of all idiots by signing up to run 4 marathons in 4 weeks in October – I’ll defer my psychic evaluation to until after that.

Happy running everyone!