Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Boston Marathon
After all the months of preparation the big day was finally here. The Boston Marathon was everything I expected it to be and then even more. From the F-15's fly over at the start, to the screaming fans along the course, that town sure knows how to put on a marathon.
My day started off great - I had a real nice breakfast at the hotel (which I normally don't do but because of the noon start time, you really needed to load up on some carbs) - I visited the local Starbucks in the hotel lobby and picked up a couple of large coffee's with two shots of espresso in each, hooked up with my friend Christine, and we walked the three blocks to the CSU special chartered buses. On board we met the rest of our Tuesday night track group - Angelo, Lauren, and Meghan. The Bay Area was well represented in the house.
It was a really nice drive up to Hopkinton, we had big comfortable seats that reclined, tons of leg room and most importantly, our own bathroom on board. When we arrived at the start of the race, we all decided to hang out by the bus and take advantage of the coach. The athlete's village was packed with runners, at least this way, we had lot's of space.
Around 11:00 am, we started making our way to the assigned corrals. All of us we blue starters (started at noon) I lined up in the 9th corral and started making conversation with the people around me. There was a couple of early starts for the wheelchair division as well as the women's. When the gun finally went off, it took approximately 6 minutes before my group finally crossed the start line.
You need to have a good plan when you run a course like this as well as a back up plan. My goals was to break 3:30 which would re-qualify myself for Boston again in 2007, my second goal was to run a negative split, and finally, set a new personal best record. These were all lofty goals, but I trusted my training, and my past marathon experiences, I knew I could hit at least one of the three.
The first mile is straight down hill, in fact, the entire 1st half of the marathon is downhill. I am a very aggressive downhill runner, so it was counter intuitive for me to hold back - you should have seen the people blowing by me, but I kept my head down and knew I'd be passing most of them by the time we got deep into the course.
The first 5K was relatively smooth pace for me, I came in at 24:49 which worked out to a 7:59 pace per mile. 24 minutes into the race, and I was dead on. My Garmin cut out at me at mile 1.4 so I had to just wing it and use my overall time on the course as my guide. As I came up to each mile marker, I used my mad math skills to figure out my pace and make sure I wasn't creeping up too soon. But really, I know what an 8:00 minute mile pace feels like, I've practiced it so much, I just went into auto pilot and let the miles melt way.
At the 10K mark, my garmin was finally working again but it only confirmed what I knew, I was dead on pace. I crossed the mark at 49:26 (7:57 pace). I had a moment of comedy at the 10K mark, as I remembered my first 10K race I ran with Team in Training, and I ran that at 53 minutes and was dead to the world, Here I am in Boston, and just ran a nice and easy 10K at 49 minutes. I guess you had to be there :)
My 15K and 20K splits were 1:14:21 and 1:39:09 respectively, (7:59 pace) I was almost at the half way point of the course and so far, my plan was working. I felt strong, relaxed, but very focused on the mission. By the time I got the the half way mark of the course, I had a big smile on my face, I clocked a 1:44:28 (7:58 pace), I was well on my way.
Once I passed the half point, I told myself, ok, time to go to work. The first little uphill comes right after mile marker #14, and I blew straight up that hill, I clocked at 7:57 pace for the 25K and was loving life. But I told myself, don't go too fast up these hills, as I don't have any course knowledge and don't know what to expect on the later hills.
The next 10 kilometers were going to be the true test. These next few miles will either make or break you. Heartbreak hill was coming up but it isn't really one hill, it's a series of hills, so if you are not careful, you can really lose it on the hill prior to heartbreak. I trusted my training and took off. Let me tell you, it was really fun passing people on the series of hills, my slowest pace up the hill was 8:00 pace - it felt really really good. Once I crested heartbreak, the course dipped downhill a bit and I knew the hard part was done.
I was feeling extremely well, my pace quickened, as the last 6 miles seem to fly by. I kept checking my watch, I wanted to see if I could actually break my personal record I set last year in San Francisco and I knew I was close. It was all coming together, my 35K and 40K times were stellar, I was able to get my overall pace down to 7:57 pace per mile.
As I was working my way to the finish line, I started to take in all of the cheering, did a couple of low five hand slaps, and felt really blessed to be at Boston. I looked up and saw the Citgo sign by Fenway Park and that's the one mile left to go on the course, there's a slight hill up to the sign and a runner turned to me and asked, who put this hill here on the course? I laughed and told him yea, what were they thinking about.
Ok, one mile left to go, I am doing the math in my head, I really need to open it up and finish strong if I want to break my PR. I don't know what took over me, but I clocked my last mile in under 7:00 minutes, 6:56 to be exact, I sprinted the last few blocks and was so excited when I finally crossed the finish line. 3:28:19! It was the trifecta. A new personal record, a negative split and a Boston qualifying time at Boston no less. It doesn't get any better than that for a marathoner.
Part 2 later :)
My day started off great - I had a real nice breakfast at the hotel (which I normally don't do but because of the noon start time, you really needed to load up on some carbs) - I visited the local Starbucks in the hotel lobby and picked up a couple of large coffee's with two shots of espresso in each, hooked up with my friend Christine, and we walked the three blocks to the CSU special chartered buses. On board we met the rest of our Tuesday night track group - Angelo, Lauren, and Meghan. The Bay Area was well represented in the house.
It was a really nice drive up to Hopkinton, we had big comfortable seats that reclined, tons of leg room and most importantly, our own bathroom on board. When we arrived at the start of the race, we all decided to hang out by the bus and take advantage of the coach. The athlete's village was packed with runners, at least this way, we had lot's of space.
Around 11:00 am, we started making our way to the assigned corrals. All of us we blue starters (started at noon) I lined up in the 9th corral and started making conversation with the people around me. There was a couple of early starts for the wheelchair division as well as the women's. When the gun finally went off, it took approximately 6 minutes before my group finally crossed the start line.
You need to have a good plan when you run a course like this as well as a back up plan. My goals was to break 3:30 which would re-qualify myself for Boston again in 2007, my second goal was to run a negative split, and finally, set a new personal best record. These were all lofty goals, but I trusted my training, and my past marathon experiences, I knew I could hit at least one of the three.
The first mile is straight down hill, in fact, the entire 1st half of the marathon is downhill. I am a very aggressive downhill runner, so it was counter intuitive for me to hold back - you should have seen the people blowing by me, but I kept my head down and knew I'd be passing most of them by the time we got deep into the course.
The first 5K was relatively smooth pace for me, I came in at 24:49 which worked out to a 7:59 pace per mile. 24 minutes into the race, and I was dead on. My Garmin cut out at me at mile 1.4 so I had to just wing it and use my overall time on the course as my guide. As I came up to each mile marker, I used my mad math skills to figure out my pace and make sure I wasn't creeping up too soon. But really, I know what an 8:00 minute mile pace feels like, I've practiced it so much, I just went into auto pilot and let the miles melt way.
At the 10K mark, my garmin was finally working again but it only confirmed what I knew, I was dead on pace. I crossed the mark at 49:26 (7:57 pace). I had a moment of comedy at the 10K mark, as I remembered my first 10K race I ran with Team in Training, and I ran that at 53 minutes and was dead to the world, Here I am in Boston, and just ran a nice and easy 10K at 49 minutes. I guess you had to be there :)
My 15K and 20K splits were 1:14:21 and 1:39:09 respectively, (7:59 pace) I was almost at the half way point of the course and so far, my plan was working. I felt strong, relaxed, but very focused on the mission. By the time I got the the half way mark of the course, I had a big smile on my face, I clocked a 1:44:28 (7:58 pace), I was well on my way.
Once I passed the half point, I told myself, ok, time to go to work. The first little uphill comes right after mile marker #14, and I blew straight up that hill, I clocked at 7:57 pace for the 25K and was loving life. But I told myself, don't go too fast up these hills, as I don't have any course knowledge and don't know what to expect on the later hills.
The next 10 kilometers were going to be the true test. These next few miles will either make or break you. Heartbreak hill was coming up but it isn't really one hill, it's a series of hills, so if you are not careful, you can really lose it on the hill prior to heartbreak. I trusted my training and took off. Let me tell you, it was really fun passing people on the series of hills, my slowest pace up the hill was 8:00 pace - it felt really really good. Once I crested heartbreak, the course dipped downhill a bit and I knew the hard part was done.
I was feeling extremely well, my pace quickened, as the last 6 miles seem to fly by. I kept checking my watch, I wanted to see if I could actually break my personal record I set last year in San Francisco and I knew I was close. It was all coming together, my 35K and 40K times were stellar, I was able to get my overall pace down to 7:57 pace per mile.
As I was working my way to the finish line, I started to take in all of the cheering, did a couple of low five hand slaps, and felt really blessed to be at Boston. I looked up and saw the Citgo sign by Fenway Park and that's the one mile left to go on the course, there's a slight hill up to the sign and a runner turned to me and asked, who put this hill here on the course? I laughed and told him yea, what were they thinking about.
Ok, one mile left to go, I am doing the math in my head, I really need to open it up and finish strong if I want to break my PR. I don't know what took over me, but I clocked my last mile in under 7:00 minutes, 6:56 to be exact, I sprinted the last few blocks and was so excited when I finally crossed the finish line. 3:28:19! It was the trifecta. A new personal record, a negative split and a Boston qualifying time at Boston no less. It doesn't get any better than that for a marathoner.
Part 2 later :)
Labels: running
