Oh, my daddy taught me well
There's some devils in heaven and some angels in hell
So promise me child, when they pull your card
You know, you know which one you are
Whoa-oh, yeah my daddy taught me well
Whoa-oh, if you can't do good, better do bad well
Oh Boston, you silly silly race. This wasn't my first rodeo, in fact it was my 11th, and as such I know the myriad ways that Boston can go. It can be hot, it can be cold, it can be miserable, it can be the race of your life, and it can be pretty much anything in between, but no matter what, it always tells some kind of story. This year's story was familiar in some ways and completely unique in others, and while the time on the clock would simply tell you that it was one of the slowest marathons I've run, there's a whole lot more to the story than that.
Now first, we need to remember that I promised everyone and their mom last year that I was absolutely Not Running Boston Next Year, that after 10 times on the merry go round over 13 years it was time for a break. And yet, as always seems to happen, September comes around and April seems so very far away and I find myself hitting submit on yet another Boston Marathon entry. At the time I told myself that if I wasn't feeling it during training, I just wouldn't do the race (more lies). By the time December rolled around and it was time to start thinking about actual marathon training, I found myself at least curious about training, if not fully invested. In the end, I would give myself credit for being invested in training, and in fact managed to work a fairly respectable training cycle around an objectively very challenging schedule that included conferences, multiple weekend dance competitions, a dance show that I was performing in, and a week-long vacation to Puerto Rico, to say nothing of the shitty weather that New England winter always seems to specialize in. It certainly wasn't perfect, nor was it impressive, but it was something. As April approached, I felt like I was probably in shape to run in the mid 3:20s and improve on my time from Loch Ness, which had really been my only vague goal for the training cycle.
And then it was 73 degrees on marathon Monday! And we laughed and laughed and laughed.
To back up for a moment, I actually was so chill going into this race weekend that I didn't even LOOK at the weather until a few days before, and even then it was only because multiple coworkers asked me how I felt about "it being 72 on Monday". Well, not great, that's how I felt! But I really found my zen about it, maybe because for the first time I wasn't starting down a hot Monday where all my PR dreams were going to be washed away. I was staring down what was sure to be a deeply unpleasant experience, sure, but at least it wasn't going to feel like a waste of "the best shape of my life", as I had felt in 2016, 2017, and 2019.
I partook in the usual pre marathon activities (I could probably do the Saturday before marathon Monday in my sleep at this point) and had a lot of fun cheering for both the 5K and the 26.true marathon going on in Boston. My inability to just wave a cowbell like a normal person resulted in my neck locking up, which was pretty annoying as it definitely impacted my sleep in the nights that followed, but that's just part of the hype train biz. Sunday I woke up definitely feeling more fatigued than I would have preferred the day before a marathon, and in hindsight I think I probably was fighting something off throughout the week as I felt pretty trashy on Tuesday/Wednesday - whether or not it impacted the race is anyone's guess. It was a typical chill pre marathon day - shakeout run, trip to Pems for last minute grocery items and lunch, organize bags, finish a trashy fantasy book, paint my nails, watch Blades of Glory. I had a smoked amber beer from Bone Up (one of my last, sadness) while also drinking half of a Skratch hyperhydration drink - I had fully accepted that heat was my fate and I was all in on anything I could do to make the day less miserable, although at 70+ degrees when the last 70+ degree day was in October, misery is pretty much a guarantee.
Being in wave 3 was nice in the sense that I got to wake up at a normal time on race morning, pretty comparable to going to work, and I was out of bed quickly and getting my lift together. I would not say I was particularly *stoked* to run a marathon - I felt like I hadn't slept well and was just dragging a bit, and again the heat was kind of the elephant in the room of my mind. But I did my best to shove those thoughts out of the way as I got ready. I somewhat ridiculously decided that I needed to cut half of the liner out of my crop top as it felt too constricting with my sports bra underneath (still the right call, I think) and I had a little fun striking poses in my usual ridiculous Goodwill getup. Drank a bottle of orange-mango juice, had a banana and ate a few graham crackers before heading out. At the last second I ran back upstairs and grabbed a few salt tabs to put in my bag to take to the start...I don't think I've taken a salt tab in years so I'm amazed my brain managed to recall that I had them, but I'm definitely glad I did!
I headed to Dunkin to pick up my bagel and on the way had a random man walking down Mass Ave look and me and go "wow...you've really got a lot going on, don't you?" which honestly brought me SO much joy, this is what the Hopkinton Collection is all about! It was objectively a beautiful morning for just about anything except running the marathon, and I tried to enjoy the fact that I was not yet running during my walk to the T - just a girl drinking her canned coffee, dressed in a multipatterned Shein blazer and a t-shirt with a cat and doughnuts in space on it, ready to take on the world.
The commute passed quickly and soon I was heading up to the gear check buses where I now have a routine like clockwork - use the line-free porta potty in the red bib area, drop off my own gear, and then head to the buses. I had become rather attached to my throwaway pants over the morning and ended up deciding to put them in my finish line bag at the last second, which also didn't bode very well for how warm the day already was. As I started to head towards the buses, a woman asked me how to get to the buses and I volunteered to show her...and with that, I achieved one of my goals for the day, which was make friends with someone running Boston for the first time! Her name was Emma and it turned out she was from Australia! She apologized for attaching herself to me and I was like OMG no, please attach yourself to me, this was my goal! And with that, I had found my bus buddy. We navigated the maze of portapotties and lines to get to the Hopkinton buses like pros and soon enough were on the journey to the start.
It was lovely having someone to chat with on the bus; I feel like in the instances where I've run without teammates I've never really sat next to someone with a personality, and Emma and I passed the time discussing the weather in Australia, different races we've done, Boston course logistics, and other random topics. Thank goodness I had someone to talk to because the bus ride turned out to be extra long this year due to our driver taking us not to the athlete's village, but to the dropoff point for runners being dropped in Hopkinton (who then need to be shuttled to the village by other buses!) All told, it was almost a 90 minute journey, and by the time we got off the bus and walked up to the village I realized it was already time to go to the start line. Absolute insanity - to not even wait in line for a porta potty at the high school was totally wild. We grabbed waters and headed off for the walk down to the start line.
I'm not even sure what head space I was in at this point; there had really been no time the whole morning to contemplate what I was doing with my life. After a bit of a nightmare backup getting into the area with the porta potties by the CVS (necessary with the whole 'not even having time to stop at the athlete's village' thing) I lost Emma in the crowd but by then she had found a fellow Aussie and they were making plans to run together, so I hope they both had a great race! I ditched the remainder of my throwaway clothes and roamed my way up to corral 1, finally arriving 3 minutes before the starting gun. This is now 2 years in a row that I've rolled up the the start with almost no time to spare, and you know what, it's not the worst thing in the world. No time to think, no time to get nervous, you're here, you're doing it, ready set go. One thought, however, that did pass through my brain as I walked the last blocks up to the corrals was this: that sun is fucking HOT. Oh well. There was nothing to be done for it! I tried to give my psyche a last minute pep talk, reminding myself to be smart, and when in doubt to hype someone else up. And then I hit play on Magic Man's "It All Starts Here", the horn sounded, and off we went!
The initial miles: 7:40, 7:37, 7:40, 7:39
As we all know, the first miles of Boston are very downhill. So you can imagine it is not a very delightful experience when you are running downhill, you know you are running downhill, you can see that you are running on the slow end of your "goal" marathon pace, and it feels...hard. I tried to let gravity do the work and pay attention to the crowds, throwing high fives at kids (one pair dressed as Mario and Luigi were particularly adorable) and trying to avoid weaving. It seemed like most people around me were in a similar mindset of taking the start conservatively, and while I never found myself having to weave around much the road did feel a lot more congested than the last time I ran out of wave 3/corral 1...probably because that time, I went out in 7:05 as compared to 7:40, lol. Anyway, 7:40 didn't feel so hot. What did feel hot was my face. And my Strava data tells me my HR had already climbed into the high 160s by mile 2 (running downhill...slower than planned marathon pace...yup.). To put it bluntly: the writing was on the wall.
At mile 4, after trying to keep my effort "steady" and being rewarded with a high 7:50s mile that felt like it couldn't have been faster if you told me the fate of humanity rode on it, I elected to turn my watch screen to time only. Just to clarify once again: we reached this point AT MILE 4. There were still 22 MILES left to run, my face felt like it was absolutely on fire, my legs felt like they were dragging through mud, and I was already throwing water on myself at the aid stations. This first mindset shift was like a switch: time literally does not matter, so stop thinking about it, stop looking at it, remove it from the equation. I know this course like the back of my hand, and I didn't need my watch to tell me where the mile markers were; I wasn't going to gain any useful information from starting at the screen. What I wasn't sure about was how I was going to convince myself to continue moving forward for another several hours in what was quickly starting to feel like an inferno.
Problem time: 7:53, 7:55, 7:56, 8:14, 8:15
I took my first gu at 4, right on schedule, and hoped that it would give me a boost of some sort. No dice - my legs continued to feel like piles of lead, and by mile 6 I was noticing that I was feeling weak and a little lightheaded as well...yes, you read that right, MILE SIX. I rummaged in my pocket and threw a salt tab into my face, even though I had drank the saltiest goddamn electrolyte mix on the planet that morning and had just taken a salty-ass gel. In lieu of someone fixing the stupid heat lamp that the sun had decided to become, I knew I had to stay on top of hydration and electrolytes or I was royally fucked.
I found Framingham frustrating. I was in utter disbelief at how hot I was - it wasn't even that my legs felt bad (though they did), it was the heat I could feel just radiating out of my face after less than an hour of running. My brain was running on a panicked loop of "I'm so fucking hot oh my god I'm so fucking hot my face is so hot I'm so hot why am I so hot where is the next water station I'm so fucking hot how am I going to run another 20 miles when I'm this fucking hot" and then intermittently I would try to break in with my rational brain like "you need to STOP THINKING ABOUT HOW HOT YOU ARE that is not helping!" and then lizard brain would be like "BUT WHAT ELSE CAN I THINK ABOUT I'M SO HOTTTTTT". I was also frustrated because I had anticipated my go to strategy in these moments would be to interact with the crowd, high five, whatever, but I found myself feeling too tired to even do that - a very bad sign at mile 7. Additionally, the crowds in Framingham were strangely quiet and seemed predisposed to golf clapping, which I found extremely disagreeable. Like, hello, you are standing out here on the most perfect day to stand by the side of the road drinking beer and cheering, while we are out here dying a death at mile 7, can you at least turn up the volume?! At some point I did something similar to what I did last year, when I yelled "Framingham let's make some noise!!" and that got a few hoots but mostly it made the runners around me look at me like I was an insane person.
I knew I hated the next section of the course into Natick, but I tried to stop thinking about that and just zone out for awhile and run. I passed the turnoff where I had gone on a run earlier in the cycle and thought "well, at least I'm not running by the PRISON today" (lol) and found myself sort of running down the middle of the road because I didn't have the energy to be interacting with spectators. I gave some encouragement to a girl who was pulled over on the side of the road with what looked like a cramp, but by and large the people around me still looked pretty good, which also was sort of frustrating - very much Mugatu asking "am I taking crazy pills?" Like, was I just struggling because I sucked, and the heat actually wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be? Not that it really mattered at this point - it was what it was, and I supposed I just had to resign myself to this being a long run...a long run with a lot of spectators and a lot of friends, but any thoughts of "racing" had completely evaporated. I thought about how miserable I had been in past Bostons trying to race, knowing I was fit, and just the overwhelming frustration that went along with feeling like my fitness was being wasted on another heat related blowup. This situation wasn't like that at all - I knew I wasn't in particularly great shape anyway, and this was never going to be a PR no matter how the weather cards fell. So why was I stressing about dialing back the pace? The refrain that I kept thinking starting around this point which really helped to turn my mindset around was "how do you want to remember this?" Did I want to remember this race which I had CHOSEN to do after saying I wouldn't as a miserable death march, or did I want to try to make it fun?
It was in that context that when I saw a house offering free beer around mile 11 in Natick I had a brief thought of "Is it too soon?"; then quickly answered my own question with "It's JUST soon enough". I veered left and soon a full can of Miller Lite was in my hand (I noticed with delight that it was a Miller, not a Bud) and I was continuing to run down the road half sipping a beer, half spilling it everywhere, and finally with a smile on my face. A girl running nearby looked at me like I was crazy and I just sort of shrugged at her - I wanted to ask, hey, are YOU running a PR race right now? No? Then why not have some fun with it!
I'm not sure whether it was the alcohol heading straight to my brain, the light carbonation and carbs, or just the exhilaration of fully and completely letting go of any race mentality, but for the next few miles through Wellesley I actually kind of felt better. Not faster, certainly, but I felt like my pace had finally stabilized, stopping it's slow descent, and my mood had certainly improved. It probably also helped that the section through Wellesley College is one of the only sections of the course with any shade, and at this point I would take what I could get. Of course, when you reach Wellesley Center the sun comes back out in earnest, and I feel like I kind of dissociated my way through this part of the race. I had now basically decided that I did not want to go over a certain threshold of discomfort, heat-wise, and if I found myself approaching that threshold I would just take a quick walk to gather myself until I felt better, then proceed. I actually think in a lot of ways this was to my benefit - rather than forcing it until I was on the brink of death and then walking and wishing I never had to start running again, I was taking walk breaks with a timeline and a purpose.
I started trying to lean in to my pre-race goal of being a hype woman, and whether I was walking or running I tried to give some encouraging words to people nearby who looked like they were struggling. We were all in this hell together, after all, and by the 14 or 15 mile point it was definitely starting to show for more people than it had been 5 miles prior. As expected, the crowds were out in force, and I took advantage of everything they were offering, from a cold sponge to a balloon arch to a freeze pop - always the greatest tasting thing on a day like this. At some point on "road" (which I'll now laugh at forever after last year) I spotted someone with a hose on the opposite side of the road - I definitely could have done with way more water spray features during the race, and so I made a beeline for this one. I ran about as close to the hose nozzle as possible, completely forgetting that I was wearing sunglasses and then cracking up as water shot up my nose and the water all over the lenses of my glasses rendered me briefly blind...the cold water to the face was still worth it, TBH. By this point I had been drinking something and throwing water on my head at every aid station, just trying to cool off as much as possible, but it was so dry that within a mile my hair and clothes would be totally dry. It was probably to my benefit that the humidity was low in general, but the whole thing had the effect of making me feel like I was parched in the desert with never enough water in sight.
I actually felt OK going over the bridge - my legs actually felt relatively strong, if not fast throughout the race, despite the heat taking its toll - and soon I was headed down towards the turn into the Newton Hills. It appeared that I had continued to mete out my effort appropriately, because while I wasn't exactly excited about the prospect of tackling the hills I felt confident that I could continue doing what I had been doing. And that's exactly what I did! Walk when I needed a second? Check. Try to hype people up? Check. Eat more freeze pops? Check.At one point I grabbed a cup of something from a spectator and I didn't know what it was; much to my delight when I drank it it was FLAT COKE! I literally turned around and screamed "OH MY GOD IS THIS FLAT COKE?!!" and the person who handed it to me was like yes...is that OK?? And I naturally responded with "IT'S THE GREATEST THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED TO ME!" Classic lol. I happened to look over and see a few of the RTB crew at one point which got me really excited, and then soon after I saw BRENDA who gave me some great high kicks and then proceeded to continue to ride her bike down the carriage road following me for a bit. I think that may actually have been the most motivating thing of the day - I was like, well, I can't walk when Brenda is watching! Lol.
My next objective was perhaps the most important of the day: to FINALLY see the group of therapists and clients from my work before Heartbreak Hill. They have come out to spectate the race like 6 times, and despite the fact that we have always tried to set up a logical timeline it never seems to work out. Since my watch had been on clock mode for the past hour + I knew that I was going to be within the window and I just had to hope that they'd be where I anticipated them to be. And sure enough, coming up towards HHRC I heard someone screaming my name and THERE THEY WERE! I was so excited I think I actually shrieked as I raced over to give all the high fives. It was just the BEST boost right before Heartbreak and despite the fatigue and my ongoing inability to run any faster than easy run pace, I at least felt like a rockstar in that moment.
Speaking of rockstars, Heartbreak Hill happened in the way it typically does (slowly), but then we were on to BC and I was finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And BC was the. fucking. best. I think in my earlier years of doing this race I was either to focused or too miserable to appreciate the glory that is that BC downhill but I will tell you what - you talk about hype? This was the definition of hype. Those kids were on my level, and I was high fiving so hard yelling fuck yeah right back at these drunk kids all the way down the hill, to the point that my arm and my back hurt and I actually had to stop and walk at the bottom of the hill because I couldn't breathe. I guess maybe that's why I don't do this in a typical race! But again, this wasn't typical. It sucked in a lot of ways, but I was finding the joy in it and I was giddy with the energy of really sucking every last bit of happiness and energy I could out of the day.
I never particularly enjoy the stretch between BC and the reservoir; it's always a "so close yet so far" situation compared to when you finally make the turn on Beacon Street. As the carnage was really starting to pile up by this point, I turned my attention back to being hype train A-Z and aiming to give an encouraging word or a commiseration to anyone I was passing who seemed to be struggling. One of the very interesting things I noticed about the strategy I chose of backing off the pace SUPER early was that I actually had a lot more to work with than expected the last few miles of the race. As I write those words, that sort of seems obvious - like, yes, duh, you expended less energy before so you have more energy now? But as obvious as it seems it hasn't been something I actually had the brain cells or the patience or maturity to *excecute* in any of my prior hot Bostons, so the fact that I was starting to pass a lot of people in the later stages made me feel really proud of the fact that while this was going to be a slow marathon for me, at least it was going to be a relatively well executed one. I felt like I had reached a solid homeostasis; my body could only give so much and stay above the heat line, but I wasn't declining minute by minute.
Beacon Street was a bit of the blur; I was trying to focus in on just continuing to move forward and making it through the last 3 miles. I knew Elise was going to be in Washington Square and I was hopeful she might have a beer for me (she did not, but I did see her lol) and then it was just on into Brookline. By this point, I was finally feeling happy - I was tired, I was hot, but I was truly just enjoying the experience for what it was and that in itself was something special. I ate a raspberry popsicle from someone that tasted incredible, I danced with some drunk people blasting "Bad Boys For Life" out of a massive speaker, I randomly made eye contact and screamed at one of our old speech students in Coolidge Corner, I waved my arms, I high fived, I soaked everything in. Approaching the last hill over the bridge, "Manchester" came on my playlist, because of course it did, and I damn near started crying right there on the course. A song that spoke to me so strongly about recapturing the joy of running that I choreographed a solo about it, a solo I had performed mere weeks before, the opening strings suddenly there as I was running surrounded by screaming spectators, in bright sunlight, my heart full - it was so on point, it was almost too much. Up the hill and through Kenmore, the familiar bridge, the familiar turns. When the amount of time you have to contend with the discomfort shrinks from hours to minutes, suddenly things seem to become a whole lot more manageable. I ran down Boylston for the 11th time, crossing the arch in one of my slowest marathon times, but I didn't care. I had enjoyed myself, I had cheered for other runners, and maybe I wasn't ecstatic, but I was content.
In keeping with the theme of being a hype woman, instead of heading home or heading to Clery's, I elected to do something I've somehow never done at this race, which is go back out to the course and cheer. I feel that for my body this was a terrible decision (the only thing I ate for 5 hours post race was a small bag of cheese puffs from the post race bag lol) but being able to be out there with thunder sticks next to a huge speaker, dancing and cheering on all of the runners who I *knew* were working incredibly hard because I had just done the exact same thing, was quite possibly my favorite part of the day.
I'm not sure what's next for me and Boston; I think next year might finally be the year that I *actually* don't sign up. The qualifier I have from Loch Ness is unlikely to get me in anyway, but more than that I think I might finally be ready to move on from Boston, at least for now. The weather is eternally fickle and heartbreaking, and on a practical note training seriously for Boston makes it a lot more difficult to get ready for triathlon season, which to be honest is what my heart is really calling me to these days. And Boston isn't going anywhere. It might be time for a break, but I think we all know that a break from Boston is never going to last forever.
