2018 Boston Marathon Race Report

Where oh where do I begin?  I suppose I'll start with Friday, the 6th of April when I managed to hurt my back/SI joint doing a standard easy post-run routine.  The week prior to Boston I tried my best to do massage and mobility exercises to fix the issue, but I fear that I simply made it worse.

Pre-race emails with Neil, Terry, and Danny were focused on the weather - but I looked at the forecast and somehow made up my mind it wouldn't be that different from 2015.  The morning of the race, I was still more focused on my back than anything else.  The weather on race morning, well...it was that different.  And focusing primarily on my back would prove to be a disastrous mistake.

For a quick look into how disastrous...look at the picture to the left, then add a winter hat, arm warmers, and gloves.  On April 16th, that was not enough for me.  Still, as I sat in Neil's van heading out to Hopkinton, I was thinking, "dang injured back, what terrible timing!"  And well, that was true also, but I was about to run 26.2 miles in 38 degree temps with lashing winds and torrential downpours and I was practically naked.

Our group was fortunate enough to have access to a home in Hopkinton, so pre-race I was lying on stranger's living room floor staying warm, dry, and ingesting ibuprofen.

On the line both Neil and noticed that Mike Wardian would be the guide for a blind runner who was aiming to break 2:30.  They looked brutally cold, since they were doing interviews outside for the previous 30 minutes, and Neil and I gave them both our extra hand warmers.  That seemed to help them out for the brief moments we had to await the start.

Just prior to the gun going off, I told Neil that I was terrified of a DNF...

Once the gun did go off, Neil and I did a good job of moving forward with the crowd.  We were content to be a little slow for mile one before we had some space to accelerate and get down to what would hopefully be a sustainable pace.  So after a slow 6:37 first mile, we settled into roughly 6:15/mile.

While Neil looked bouncy and eager to rock, I was feeling much different.  The pace actually felt incredibly easy on my lungs.  Unfortunately, my entire core felt out of whack.  My lower back remained total bunk, and my left hip flexor started to tighten up as well.  Somewhere between 5 and 7 miles I started to lose contact with Neil.  I could see him continue to increase the gap, and I was making a concerted effort not to look at my splits and just get to another mental marker on the course.

By mile 9, Danny had caught up to me, and he looked extremely strong.  He asked how I was doing and I gave him the honest assessment of "not great."  He asked if there was anything he could do to help, which there wasn't.  So, I just told him he looked strong and to keep kicking ass.  It was around this time that I started to really feel cold and my hands were starting to hurt.  With my back feeling like crap, and now my hands going painfully numb I told myself to just get halfway and then I'd assess whether or not to drop out.

Each wave of freezing cold rain sent me into a deeper and deeper funk.  I passed through Natick and the Wellesley scream tunnel and I was actually moving well(ish), but I was feeling just awful.  Finally, just before the Rt. 95 overpass I had to stop and pee, and I had a strong feeling that this could end my race.  I was fighting to hold off a shiver and my hands felt like they would explode.  Once I left the porto though, I hadn't seized up, but I was still very very cold.  I thought - just get to the Newton Hills and I'll consider dropping out once I see Elizabeth.

As I took the right at the firehouse, I heard, "yeah!  Go Patrick!"  And I turned my head to see Nick and Al Fisher.  I immediately stopped and ran towards them, to which they said, "oh no, Patrick keep going, you don't have to stop!"  I was hurting badly and asked if I could borrow their gloves.  They were more than happy to...but I think they were still a little confused at what I was doing.  So I held my hands up and said, "Nick, I need you right now."  In retrospect, this is pretty funny, but in the moment I had completely lost the use of my hands.  So he had to take off my gloves, and we struggled to try and get their gloves on my hands, but my fingers were stuck in a g-chord like position.  In my head, I had assumed this would shortly be it for me, so I said thanks anyways and ran off to find Elizabeth and likely drop out.

Apparently my thumb could function!

(It's worth mentioning that before the race, I told Elizabeth she didn't have to meet me at the Newton hills if she didn't want since the weather was so bad.)  I made my way towards Heartbreak and heard a lot of familiar voices cheering me from the sidelines.  I passed Jon and he offered me anything to help, but I made some joke and kept moving - which was so so so dumb.  But, I was desperately looking for Elizabeth and a spot to make my decision.  In the back of my head I think I knew she wouldn't be ther
e though.  I was chilled to the bone and this type of weather causes her Reynaud's to go crazy.  So, I was looking and looking and blowing into my hands and looking, and putting my hands under my arms and looking and looking...and then I was through the hills and into BC.

Even though the race was only a few days ago, I don't remember much of the final miles except how cold I was.  My hands were unprotected at that point, and I was just in a totally desperate place.  I was looking all around for...I'm not sure what....maybe a familiar face that was wearing giant mittens? But as I looked for help and found none, I was still moving forward.  With 5m to go I was shivering uncontrollably and grimacing from the pain in my hands and right arm, which were both numb and pulsating.  I was also starting to have shaky vision - not blurred exactly - but it was an increasing concern.  I had passed a medical tent that was handing out milar blankets, so I quickly turned to grab one of those.  I ran the final 5k with basically no upper body mobility.  I was just trying to close that blanket up as best as possible.

Looking at the data from my GPS/heartrate - this is exactly when I started to probably get into a dangerous spot with hypothermia.  My heart rate had been steadily in the 150s before dropping to 148 and 139 for the final 2 miles, and then 121 for the final ~half mile.  I was not the picture of glory crossing that line...

I rushed through the finish area as quickly as possible, and met up with Elizabeth where she got some good practice for when I'm an old man.  I was still shivering when we finally got to Legal's with a good portion of the CSU crew who had a pretty incredible day (both Neil and Danny ran PRs!).

My final time was 2:58 whatever.  Who cares.

Strava Data
Garmin Data
MarathonFoto