BFFL Best Friends For Life

Let me start off with a headline from the Boston Globe: "The 111th Boston Marathon, the world's oldest annual road race, went off without a hitch in its stride amid the worst conditions since 1970."

Worst Conditions since 1970 - well that sort of summed it up for me, but I anticipated the crappy weather as my mantra all week long was prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. Until last week, I had no idea what a Nor'easter was, and when I Googled the word and asked transplanted Bostonians, I surely did not like the definition. Basically, its a storm with winds blowing from the North, North East direction, and running from Hopkinton to Boston is west to east, so that meant we'd have a head wind the entire race.

I've never been a big fan of the weather channel but it quickly became my best friend. Frantically, I read a bunch of posts on Runner's World discussion forums regarding the Boston Marathon 2007. There were tons of suggestions ranging from: tights, no tights, gloves, glove warmers, long sleeve shirts loose fitting - long sleeve shirts tight fitting, the pro's and con's of each. There was even discussions of what type of socks to wear as everyone anticipated cold, wet damp feet. Everyone was making compelling arguments for their point of view.

I wanted to make sure I had enough information to make an informed decision, but I didn't want to make too much of a radical change right before the marathon as I am a creature of habit and the marathon is not the venue to be experimenting with something new, especially Boston. I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to get wet, no big deal by the way, and that I was most liking going to be running in headwinds.

Monday morning rolls around and I am up at 5:00 am to take a hot shower and pack my bag - I was going to meet Lauren and Angelo in the lobby as we were going to take the subway together to Cambridge and pick up our special bus. The subway was late, and we just got to the buses in the knick of time - though, I am sure they would have waited for us. It's about a 50 minute bus ride to Hopkinton and I sat next to my buddy Mark. Trying to stay relaxed as the wind and rain pounded our bus, I listened to music on my iPod.

We arrive at Hopkinton and I decide I want to walk over to the porta-potties lining the parking lot. Big mistake as the lines were already deep, the wind and rain was howling and plus we had our own toilet on the bus so what was I doing outside?

Back on the bus, I made my first critical mistake. Even though I brought along my running tights, I decided against wearing them. What I did instead was rub some Tiger Balm on my legs and quads and then coat my legs with Vaseline. I read that this is an old swimmers trick to help keep their legs warm. Why I decided to do this? I have no idea but at the time, it sounded like a good idea. I also smeared Vaseline on my face to act as an insulating guard too.

So picture this, my legs are all lubed up (never done that before), I am wearing my running shorts, a long sleeve compression shirt (never ran with one on before), I've taped my toe in my right foot in anticipation of the blister (never done that before), put on a day glow tank top (never worn before), my Nike wind breaker/rain jacket (always wear that one!) my gloves with hand warmers inside (never done that before), a skull cap (old friend), Vaseline on my cheeks and chin, (new experience) and my rain jacket. Yes, for the person who didn't really want to change things up that much before a race, I really screwed up. However, the rain jacket didn't bother me as I knew I would be tossing it once we got started.

Two vital pieces of equipment I brought in the bag but did not take out, my Garmin 305 and GU shots. From all of my reading, everyone was stating that the Garmin does not work properly in the rain - so, armed with my only my watch, I figured I'd go old school. Forgetting the GU was just plain stupid - but I was able to bum one shot off of Mark, so I had at least one!

Mark and I work our way up to the starting line and we both have to go pretty bad, so, we join in a bunch of other blokes all relieving themselves right by starting line. Hey when ya got to go, you got to go! I work myself into the 10th corral and wish Mark good luck as he was starting in the 9th corral. I encouraged Mark to move up to the front of his corral as those runners were closer to his pace. There I am standing there, the rain coming down, I have my plastic hood pulled over my cap, my gloves underneath my arms protecting them, and my hand warmers are no longer working! WTF? The packaging stated 10 hours of warmth, I think I got all of 60 minutes.

The gun goes off, and each wave makes it way to the front, and I strip off my rain coat as the rain is definitely letting up and I am off! Yeah! Finally, after all those weeks of training, the long runs, the interval repeats, the medium runs, the recovery runs, the moment is finally here. This being my second Boston Marathon, I knew exactly what to expect, especially during the first part of the course. I wanted to take advantage of the downhill, but not too much. Initially, my goal was to run a 3:20, but with the inclement weather I figured hey a 3:25 would be just as good.

I can usually dial in my pace pretty easily, and that's exactly what happened. In fact, I even wanted to go a bit faster, but I slowed down to a very comfortable pace. I hit the first 5k right at 24 minutes and the 10k at 48 minutes right at my 7:47-50 pace. As I was running, I could feel my body heating up and critical mistake number two was about to unfold. The first thing I took off were my gloves and I stuffed them in the pockets of my jacket. That felt very comfortable, so, I took off my skull cap, and I then took of my jacket and wrapped it around my waist. 5 miles into the race, I was feeling good, warm and strong. No sense in overheating as I do tend to run a bit warm.

The miles just melted away, one after the other, my pace was good, my breathing was rhythmic, and I was really looking forward to the second half of the course. Around mile 12, you could hear the screeching, and as I got closer, I started to get goose bumps as I knew I'd be soon hitting Wellesley College. This is an experience all to itself, the entire side of the street is lined up with beautiful college women all screaming for you. There was a guy running next to me, and I remember telling him hey all those girls are yelling for you! I think he smiled. Like last year I didn't want to waste too much energy high fiving anyone, so, I moved to the left side of the course and just smiled as I ran by. I hit the half right at 1:43 - 7:53 pace and I was just cruising along. Visions of a 3:25 were dancing in my head! I was very proud of my effort as I actually stopped and walked through the Gatorade stops yet still hit the half way point in great condition.

Then all of a sudden at mile 14, I felt a pain - a cramp actually in my right quadriceps. Wow, this is a new one on me, after all these marathons I've done, I've never had a cramp in my quads. I figured it would surely pass but I did change my foot strike a bit to work it out and it seemed to work out temporarily. But I was very concerned and started to panic a bit. It's too early in the race to be having any pains - is it the head wind causing me to cramp up? I knew I had experienced some issues with the cold air blowing on my legs at the track, but they were coated with Vaseline so it couldn't be the wind!

Another bad omen was a fierce gust of wind, kinda taking me out of stride for a bit. I looked up to see where I was and the street sign read Mulligan St. So my other training partner, Neale (Mulligan) was there too and with all of the cold weather, our Canadian training partner (Patrick) made his presence felt too. Next time guys, you need to be running with me instead of making your presence felt!

So, instead of accelerating my pace, I was starting to slow down, I was fighting cramps in both of my quads and now my calves were starting to hurt. My hands were getting cold again and instead of putting on my gloves like most normal people would, I grabbed some Vaseline from the first aid worker and smeared it on my hands. I figured if it was good for my legs it must work ok for my hands. I have no idea what I was thinking, I must have been delusional to think that would actually work.

There's that critical moment in a marathon when you physically start to give out and the mental kicks in. That's where I was right before the hills in Newton. There was no way in hell I was going to stop and walk up the hills, this was my time and I wanted to get me some wet road kill (thanks TC.) In retrospect, maybe I should have walked some and saved my legs for the latter part of the course, but dammit, last year, I was flying up these exact same hills, minus the head wind of course, but I was in much better shape this year, so in my mind it was a wash.

OK, I made it to the top, ugly, but I made it without stopping and slowly started my way down again. The pain was just too much, I had to stop and walk for awhile, I just couldn't bear it anymore. These last 5 miles were really going to suck, but even if I had to get on my hands and knees and crawl all the way in, there was no way I wasn't going to finish. I started back up again, very slowly, plodding along when I hear Joe hey Joe, I stop and look and its Mark. I thinking holy moley, what happened? Mark went on to tell me he was having serious problems on the course and he was glad to see me. Mark had no idea how happy I was to see him. I felt so alone out there and to see my training partner gave me the needed boost to carry me into the end.

Mark and I talked out way to the end, in fact, I owe my completion of the marathon to Mark. He stuck by my side like a true friend and wouldn't leave me even though the contractions in my calf made it impossible for me to continue. I can remember leaning on Mark for a bit until the calf muscle released.

Towards the end, we both high fived the fans lining up the street, took in all of the sights, just truly enjoying the last little bit of the marathon. I turned to Mark and told him isn't this amazing? All these people yelling and screaming for us? As I limped into the finish, I grabbed Mark's hand and raised it as we both crossed the finish line together. It was a fitting finish - I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

We were done, finished, and cold, well I was extremely cold. All I could think about was getting some warm clothes back on and jumping into the heat tent. I was shaking from the core and I needed to get warm. My only complaint about the BAA was the buses that had our bags. Unfortunately, when I dropped off my bag, the bus wasn't there, so, we piled them up where the bus was suppose to be.

I found the bus, but it was 5 people deep at every window. What was this? I held my bib number up and yelled out my number to the volunteers working inside. What seemed like an eternity, I waited in the cold, shivering, hoping they would find my bag. When they finally found it, I felt like I won the lottery, but I needed to get into the heat tents right away. I wasn't feeling well and I needed to heat up. I told the guy working the front door, I needed to warm up and he guided Mark and I to a couple of vacant chairs. Boy, this was going to be interesting - actually sitting down. I grabbed a couple of blankets and wrapped myself with them. The air was warm, but not that hot. The tent was as long as a city block and it was jam packed full of people. Runners kept trickling in some shaking uncontrollably, I flashed back to my Boston warning email Stage 2 hypothermia. Those runners had it a lot worse than me.

I turned to Mark and told him let's get out of here. We found his family and Monica at the family pick up area and walked back to my hotel. They were going to take a cab from our hotel back to theirs. We said our goodbyes in the lobby but we'd be having dinner together. When I got back inside the hotel, I noticed all these runners lined up outside the elevators. What in the heck in going on? I find out that a fire alarm went off and the elevators have been turned off and even though the firemen gave the all clear, the elevators needed the alarm cleared by the elevator people. I inquired where the staircase was, and was directed to the opposite end of the floor. Monica looked at me and thought I was crazy, but I really needed to take a hot shower and warm up. The first 4 flights of stairs were nice and carpeted, but the rest of the way to the 31st floor was bare concrete! Such a nice way to end a marathon, hiking up 31 flights of stairs.