What a day! It all started with a 5:00 wake-up to get Mark all situated for the race. He had to eat and put on his race day attire. I walked with him up to Boston Commons where the busses take the runners to the start line in Hopkinton. Thousands of runners. Hundreds of busses. It was an incredible sight.
After I said goodbye, I went back to the hotel to get the boys and our chairs and we walked down Boylston Street to the finish line to claim our spot. We knew the first women wouldn't be crossing for nearly 5 hours, but we wanted to be up close. We scored a great spot right across from Lord & Taylor, 150 yards before the finish line. Within the hour, the streets along Boylston were packed 2-3 deep, and by the time the elites came racing through the people along Boylston were 8-10 deep. They say there were 1 million people on the streets of Boston watching the race. It was really the most amazing thing I have ever seen.
We saw the wheelchair winners come blazing through in a 3-pack. Then about 30 minutes later we saw the police lights and camera truck turn left onto Boylston, and a few seconds later the elite women came racing by. It was a close race between the Kenyan who won and the American Davila who finished only 2 seconds behind. Watching them crash through the tape with arms in the air was incredible. And about 5 minutes before we expected it, we heard a loud cheer down the street and we knew it meant that the men's elite runners were turning the corner. Sure enough, they came racing up the street. When the camera truck came by us it said 2:02:30 and we knew this was going to be a new record for a marathon. We watched as 2 Kenyans raced each other not only to win, not only for a Boston course record, but also for the fastest marathon EVER run! I will never forget the moment they crashed through their tape. We also cheered as Ryan Hall ran right in front of us about 2 minutes later to claim 4th place. Boy, does he have some amazing leg muscles.
One very...interesting....thing we saw was a women's finisher, I believe number 32. As she came near, we thought, "those are some interesting tights...no, maybe tattoos...maybe K-tape?" And then there was the moment I will never forget when we all realized that what we hoped we were not seeing was indeed what we did actually see. She had pooped. A lot. And it was everywhere, and all down her legs but she kept running. She placed somewhere around 12th. Hope it was worth it for her.
We started looking for Mark around the 3:15 time. That was his goal. He had strained his left calf about 7 weeks prior while running intervals on an icy track, and he knew that going for a sub-3 was not a good idea in Boston. He paced himself perfectly until mile 16 when he says things fell apart. His right hamstring began cramping, and his right quad as well. He knew he had to slow his pace down and shorten his stride in order to keep running and not end up walking.
In the end, he crossed at 3:24:25. Slower than he had hoped, but still quite an accomplishment. I am so proud of him for not giving up and not walking. He trained so hard and gave it everything.
Mark says that the Wellesley girls are really as loud as everyone says they are, and that the race itself was an incredible experience, despite his time. He also recommends that you don't run intervals on an icy track.
I was so happy when he ran by us at the finish line. He did it! Mark ran the Boston Marathon! What a stud muffin I am married to.
By the way, he didn't buy one of their dumb old jackets I blogged about a few weeks ago.
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