Boston Marathon Weekend

was start on Saturday morning.  I was planning to spend my weekend at Keith’s (MCRRC teammate) family home in Northern MA and he got a wonderful gig with his company to spend six months in New Zealand, but need to put all his belonging into a storage space before his new assignment.  But the Self-Storage did not allow him to finish packing the night before; therefore I headed out to help him out the Saturday morning and delayed our departure from Silver Spring till 13:30.  Eventually we pulled into the driveway of his parent home in 23:30 Saturday night.  

Sunday morning, we were very tire, but we still manage to get up around 07:30 to do our shakeout jog on a four-mile loop around his home.  We jogged easily and got it in for 31 minutes flat.  We wash up quickly and head down to expo for our package. Keith done couple of Boston Marathon before, but it was my first ever.  I was like a new kid on the first day of school.  I couldn't hold excitement, I smiled like six-year-old, look around for something different, and I spotted several friends from DC area before I pick up my own package.  It was very exciting to see someone you know in such international event.  

We got my number and shirt, headed to the picture section for a photo under a big Boston Marathon banner, and then got ourselves into the expo.  

I spend a fortune and buy myself a bright orange Boston Marathon jacket; I hardly ever spend that much money on clothes.  Anyway, the expo had pretty much the same displays in any other marathon expo; it was just about four times larger.  We randomly looked around and we head out of town.  I spend the rest of afternoon with Keith's family to celebrate Easter, it was wonderful, and I ate a lot.  By 9pm, we returned to our own quarter and get our rest.  Amazedly, I slept fine, although my allergy did bother me a bit, and I woke up twice to clear nostril, but I felt back into sleep without any problem. 

Monday morning, I awoke by the sounds of my alarm at 5:20.  I quickly get my coffee and bagel, and clear the system before we headed out to catch our shuttle in Boston Common.  

We arrived to Hopkinton by 08:45 - about 25 minutes for first wave runners to line up.  We managed to use our bathroom, met a few friends, and then we get to our respective corral.  I waited around, tried to stay loose in lower 40 degree temperature, watch people getting in line, and said quick hellos to a few friends that passing by.  There were no bathroom by the staging area and I needed to go.  By distracting myself, I watch my surrounding and saw there were several snipers/soldiers on rooftopwatch over us with high power binoculars, soldiers armed machine guns patrolling with dogs, volunteers double checks runners’ bib before every corrals, and runners follow instruction orderly.  It felt intense but safe. 

By 9:45 or so, Star Spangled Banner was sung by someone important, four helicopters fly on top of us at the end of it, and then everyone cheer.  It was so much energy in the air and we were all ready.  At 10:00, air horn blew and first wave of nine thousand runners charged forward; by 10:02 and about 250 meters from the starting line, countless male runners served the duty to fertilize the nature, and I partaken it.   

Anyway, I never completed in a race with that many full marathoners and was a total new experience for me.  I just couldn’t remember every single piece of the race.  I only remember a few; I remember people were everywhere, there were runners running all around me, specters cheering at me everywhere I looked.  When I ran by some section, a neighborhood family put their stereos out on the lawn and was playing YMCA, while runners danced YMCA with their hands.  It was a very fun scene and felt more like in a concert.  When I ran by Wesley, female students cheer for us, they screamed on the top of their lungs to me as I am Ryan Hall, and offer kisses as temptations to get us run faster and stay strong.  When I ran by Boston College near Brookline, I saw people were cheering and called out “MCRRC” from my jersey.  Everywhere I ran, I saw little kids put their tiny hands out for high/low fives.  I never had that many fives in one setting.  I saw so many single and double amputee runner kept it going, it was very encouraging.  Overall, it was absolutely amazing. 

Before I get into the race, I thought I was training alright, even though I did not have a prefect training, but I think was about 85 – 90% marathon peak shape before the race and thought that should be good enough for PR.  I tried to hit split every mile, but I missed a few and here is what I have from my Ironman watch:

Mile	Split
1	06:59.23	Excluding pee stop
2	06:45.04
3	06:40.66
4 + 5	13:31.43
6	06:42.30
7	06:42.95
8	06:48.05
9	06:53.82
10	06:55.14
11	06:59.33
12	06:52.62
13	06:55.80
14	06:53.33
15	07:09.53
16	06:51.10
17 + 18	14:48.67
19	07:14.43
20	07:29.18
21	08:00.47
22 + 23	15:03.47
24	07:43.25
25	07:42.53
26.22	08:55.19
Total	3:06:37.52

And here is 5K interval splits from BAA:

5k	00:21:38
10k	00:42:38
15k	01:03:46
20k	01:25:23
Half	01:30:04
25k	01:47:05
30k	02:09:43
35k	02:33:03
40k	02:57:04
Finish	03:07:08	Including pee stop

In which, I have following split between each 5k:

	Pace between each 5k
	Time	pace
5k to 10K	21:00.0	06:46.00
10k to 15K	21:08.0	06:48.00
15k to 20K	21:37.0	06:57.00
20 to Half	04:41.0	06:58.00
20k to 25K	21:42.0	06:59.00
25 to 30K	22:38.0	07:17.00
30k to 35K	23:20.0	07:31.00
35k to 40K	24:01.0	07:44.00
40k to finish	10:04.0	07:23.00

I know… I need that additional 10 – 15%.  My plan to PR on the street of Boston failed terribly.  However, many people I spoke to after the race was also had a bad day due to fast warm up weather.  When the race started, it was in the low-40s, then by noon, it jumped up to mid-60s.  Maybe that was the weather play the role of my failure.  Whatever that was, I still finished my fourteenth state in Massachusetts and 21^st marathon in Boston.  I couldn’t complain any and only be very proud to be part of the history to known that Meb broke the 30 years drought to win in Boston as an American.

I caught a ride with a friend and storm out of Beantown within three hours, and took the following day off from work.  On Wednesday, I wore my orange Boston jacket proudly to work; I felt so terrible in legs and knees, but the stiffness and soreness weren’t matter – I am so proud to be part of 2014 Boston Marathon.