Today: 13.1 miles
Week: 20.31 miles
April: 124.93 miles
2010: 467.28 miles
Boston’s Run To Remember
Well, I now have a half marathon under my belt. Wasn’t exactly the time I was hoping for, but I’ll take it and do better next time. I’ve been running my last few long runs not too much slower than my target race pace of 9:00. In fact, a week ago today, I did 13.0 miles in 2:03. So I thought it would be a shoe-in to do less than two hours today.
What I didn’t count on was the effects of heat and humidity. It was in the low 70′s when we started at 8:00 a.m. and climbed to high 70′s quickly. Not sure what the humidity was, but it was up there for sure. Sun was beating down hard.
The race starts in the Seaport section of Boston. There’s not much out there other than some office buildings, a convention center and hotel, and lots of parking lots and construction. But the first thing you do is go over a bridge into Boston proper, wind around a bit and finally cross the Longfellow Bridge into Cambridge. Then it’s down Memorial Drive along the Charles River for a few miles and back. When you cross the Longfellow again, you go down historic Charles Street, a couple of blocks down Commonwealth Ave, then through downtown Boston and back to the Seaport.

Click for full-size map.
By mile 4, I knew I was in trouble. I was going along at about an 8:50 pace, but I was beat already. I knew I couldn’t keep that up for another 11 miles. By about 5.5 miles, I had to give in and take a one minute walk break. Around the half way mark, I remembered that I’d brought some gel and ate that. There was a water stop at about that point too. I had to take more walk breaks, going for a one minute or so break every mile. But around mile 7-8, the gel kicked in and gave me a bit more energy. I continued liberal walk breaks, but tried to keep them to a minute or less. In my defense, there were PLENTY of others walking – people a lot younger and more in shape than me.
By around mile 10, I was really hurting. The walks were coming closer together. I finally reached the Longfellow Bridge to take me back into Boston. It’s about a half mile across. I determined to do it all in a single run. Half way across, I saw a man over on the side, holding onto the railing, obviously just trying desperately to stay upright, and not doing a very good job of it. A couple other runners ran over to him and about the same time an officer or EMT or something on a bicycle zipped over to help him out, calling for more help on a radio.
That caused me to take stock of myself, wondering how close I might be to the same situation. This guy seemed younger and in better shape than me. But I didn’t feel THAT bad, so I made my goal of getting across the bridge. Right after that on Charles Street, another woman was lying on the ground, feet propped up, being tended to by an EMT. She looked to be early to mid 20′s and very fit. Again, I assessed how I was doing and determined to avoid any heroics. From there, the walk/run ratio became almost 1:1. I don’t really know because I was beyond trying to time anything. I’d just run til I knew I couldn’t run anymore, then walk until I felt I was ready to go again.
I saw my 2:00 goal vanish early on, then 2:05, and finally even realized 2:10 was out of my reach. But it seemed like 2:15 was still obtainable. I got through downtown and back to the bridge to the Seaport. With the finish line in sight and less than a half mile to go, I still had to take a walk break. By this time, my calves were cramping up pretty badly but there was not much to do than just push on. I finally ran in the last quarter mile or so, knowing that my wife and daughter were watching near the finish line.
Official time: 2:13:43. Not anywhere near to my original goal, but I made it across on my own two feet, so I can’t really complain. Now I have a new PR to beat. All in all, a grueling, not very pleasant experience. But hey, I have my very first race medal!
