Well...that was pretty tough. After all the training, all the miles, and everything else that went into preparing for the marathon, it went exactly as I didn't expect it to. I knew any plans I had were pretty much thrown out the window when I was sweating on the shuttle ride out to Hopkinton, but at that point I really had no idea what I was in for. By the time I headed towards the starting line, I'm pretty sure the temps had already hit 80 degrees....and still, like a naive fool, I thought it wouldn't be that bad...
The first few miles were a bit of a blur as I was soaking in the huge crowds and the adrenaline was pumping. The plan in my head was to run a "conservative" 8m/mile pace for the first 8 miles, and then reassess at that point. Well, I was able to do that, but I ended up going progressively (or regressively?) slower and slower from that point forward. In retrospect I should have started pulling it back in Framingham. The air along that portion of the coarse really felt like a mid-August oven, and it had that heavy feeling to it (I later saw that Framingham is one of the portions of the course where temps hit 90 degrees). I also started to notice my quads were feeling it, which was unexpected since I never had that during any of my training runs.
...And I think it was around mile 8 or 9 that I ran into another CSU runner, Kat, that had done the CSU Soup Run a few weeks back, and we stayed together for probably 13+ solid miles. (As a side note, I'll have to find/steal a picture because we were wearing the team shirt/orange shirt/orange shoes...unplanned, but I find this coincidence to be funny). Having a running-mate was a huge boost at that point because I didn't want to be focusing on my quads for another 18 miles. Together we really cruised along, and while I could feel the hammers hitting my quads, I could ignore that pretty easily with conversation.
At miles ~15 and ~19 we passed the CSU tents, and I remember Terry catching up to us with water & ice...and for some reason that stood out because he was completely calm and very polite, "Would you like some ice? I have water and gatorade as well. You guys are looking smooth. Keep it up!"...Maybe his calm demeanor stood out in a sea of folks enjoying adult beverages...but that's beside the point - it really does feel cool to be part of a team and have that support.
It was at about mile 22 when I stopped for some water and told Kat to just keep going so I could shake out my legs...probably a bad idea because maybe two minutes later, I stopped to stretch out my quad and that was definitely a bad idea - the second my leg was at a 90 degree angle, I had a muscle-tornado occur in my right hamstring. I'm not sure how long that lasted, but it sucked. I could feel the muscles twitching in the quads/groin/hammystrings from that point on.
Those last miles were really tough. My mind was clear, but the heat had completely sapped my legs. I ended up seeing Jay/Stink/Doug/Hector/Kathleen/Cordero/Meg/along the course starting at around mile 23, which was a huge boost...and still, 3.2 miles to go...
Most of those miles are complete blur as I was just trying to focus on keeping the legs moving, but once I hit Hereford I saw Elizabeth/Mike/Katherine/Mary&Annie/Ponyboy/Meg/my green sign and I knew it was the home stretch. I gave a wave, went a few hundred meters, and took a left onto Boylston and saw the finish line.
It's pretty tough to describe that feeling, but it's certainly something that I won't be forgetting. My finishing time was 3:58:44, which is a little bittersweet - I felt like I put in a lot of hard work and had it in me to do a lot better, but the heat really affected me. But I know that when I look back on this I won't be thinking about my time; I'll by saying that it's pretty cool that my first marathon was back in 2012, that year when we had one of the hottest Boston Marathon's on record.
....still...I can do better. When is BayState?
And I can't forget to mention congrats to Conor/Fanning/AlMaher/Carolyn/Kat & all the other CSUers who ran on Monday - well done! And a big thanks to everyone for all the cheering and support along the way.
