Boston 2009: the year of cold hands

What can you say about a race that you’ve run seven times previously? That you love the thing? That it makes you crazy? That the travel is difficult, and expensive, and always worrisome? That the course itself is very challenging, and it can kick your butt, but that the fans are like no other fans in the world? That on either end of the 26.2 miles – either in Hopkinton (town motto: “where it all begins”) on race morning, or along Boylston Street at the end – and for every step along the way, it’s a celebration of running?

That’s how Mick described my addiction to this race a year ago, when I was puzzling over my crazy compulsion to come back to Boston year after year. “It’s a runners’ festival”, he said, and I immediately knew he was right. It’s like gaining membership to one of the greatest running clubs in the world, and then being invited back year after year. Even after seven – now eight - years of running the Boston Marathon, I can still barely believe my good fortune each year when I get my confirmation card in the mail.

It was easy to play mental games in those early years. I ran my first Boston in April 2002 in a time of 4:00:55 after just squeaking in with a qualifying time of 3:55:59. To be clear: that qualifier left not a second to spare. Early that year, I broke a rib (skiing, Beaver Creek, steep bumps) in the critical stages of my Boston training, and wasn’t at all sure I could even make it to “the show”. I startled myself with that performance – I went out and ran a comfortable pace on a reputedly tough course, with sub-optimal training – and yet I still ran the second fastest marathon of my (then very short) marathoning career. Lucky for me, the next year Boston changed qualifying standards, easing my previous 3:55 requirement to 4:00, so I had, once again, just squeaked in. Barely able to believe my good fortune, I vowed to go back to Boston to vindicate myself and shave off a mere 56 seconds so that I could say I had run Boston “sub-4”. Why did I choose that goal? Who knows. It was an easy number to quantify, I guess. And, I think, in retrospect, one that seemed imminently doable at the time.

But it turned out not to be quite so easy. The next three years were all hot, and I don’t do so well on hot days. I suffered through 2003 and 2004 in 4:16:41 and 4:29:34, and felt like death warmed over at the end of each race. It seemed so wrong, so unfair, to be training harder each year, and yet to be going backwards in the final standings. The third hot year – 2005 – I managed my race much better, but still finished in a disappointing 4:04:00. The consolation prize that year was the fact of my highest age-group placing to date. Still, it wasn’t sub-4.

2006 looked like the year it would happen; the weather was almost picture perfect – by marathoners’ standards, anyway. Cool and cloudy all the way. My training was solid. But it just wasn’t my day, and I knew it all the way, so when I crossed the finish line that year, I felt like I had failed. That I had run a time identical to the previous year (4:04:00) was no consolation. I should have been much, much faster!

The next year, 2007, was the year that Boston almost didn’t happen, owing to a Nor’easter that rampaged in New England during marathon week. This was also my first Boston without Mick. Given the cold, wet conditions, and the absence of my biggest cheerleader, I had low expectations for the day. So, of course, dear reader, you see the punch line before I can even type it: I ran a breakthrough Boston time of 3:57:25. Finally. I had my sub-4 at Boston. Time to retire from the race.

But, of course, with addiction, there is always a reason to have just one more go at it, one more excuse to repeat the experience. In 2008, I had serious health issues, and thought I might have to retire from running altogether, or, at the very least, retire from marathons. So, I justified to myself that I needed to return to Boston “just one more time”. It was, I told my friends and family, my “Boston Swan Song”. I would carry my camera and capture photos of every landmark along the way that had come to represent the Boston experience to me. I would stop and smell the flowers. I would have a beer on Heartbreak Hill. I would high five every kid along the route, and kiss the girls at Wellesley. Yes, I did all this, and ran my slowest Boston to date (4:38:59), and followed it all up with an emergency appendectomy back in Denver a day or so later.

Ever in search of a new reason to return to the Runners Festival, in 2009 I settled on one that would – possibly, with luck and some hard work – serve me for the next three years: a goal to run Boston ten times in a row. After all, 2008 marked my seventh consecutive, so I just need three more. At the St. George Marathon in October 2008, I ran a qualifying time for Boston 2010. Now the pressure hit: to be able to show up healthy enough to finish a marathon on April 20th, and then, later in 2009, to run just one more qualifying time. If all goes well, I won’t even have to think about a new raison d’etre until sometime after April 2011.

And so, in April 2009, I board a flight headed eastward. We marathoners typically fret over the race day forecasts; this time around, I find myself in the unusual position of fretting over the local forecast. Our mild spring has turned, on the eve of my departure for Beantown, into a veritable winter wonderland, with nothing short of a blizzard in the forecast for my travel day. Being a Nervous Nellie about travel and connections and such, I consider, for a short time, heading to the airport on Friday afternoon in hopes of getting out of town a bit early, but it’s just not gonna happen: I can’t get my act together that quickly. Lucky for me, that works out just fine. I time my Saturday morning drive to the airport earlier than normal, and when I get there, it seems that all systems are go. The plane I’m on – the one that takes off eastward only a few minutes late – is full of people who sat on the tarmac for hours and hours Friday night, only to be turned back because of weather and crew schedules. Happily, I land in Boston (with an easy connection through LaGuardia) right on time late Saturday afternoon.

It turns out that this is to be the weekend of easy connections – airline and otherwise. While negotiating the connection at LaGuardia (not a simple one, requiring a shuttle bus ride and a second trip through security), I meet up with another Boston-bound runner, a woman from Denver. It’s my good fortune to make a friend simply by offering to share the complex connection experience with her, and we exchange contact information for potential races back in Colorado after this weekend. Once on the ground in Boston, I have one of those six-degrees-of-separation experiences that can make you become a true believer if you’re not already so inclined: folks from Chattanooga (obviously in town for the marathon) that I meet on the T turn out to be friends with Ian (No Twitch), one of my Taper Madness buddies. Even better, they know my hotel at Kenmore Square, and, once off the T, they point me in the right direction. It all seems easy and familiar and very, very homey.

It’s too late at my arrival on Saturday for me to accomplish much other than a quick walk to a grocery store for some supplies. My hotel room does, quite accidentally, look out over Fenway Park. Although I’m not a huge baseball fan, there’s something about the energy of the Saturday night game that is just undeniable, so I open my curtains and take a few photos of the bright lights of the stadium. One thing is clear: I’m in Boston again!

Sunday is all about friends and connections. Just as it should be. My good friend Nan drives down from Maine to share brunch with me, and to fill me in on her plans to enter a PhD program in the fall. Nan drops me off at the Hynes Center so that I can hit the race packet pick-up and expo. I’m able to coordinate this with Michele (1L) and her friend Jody, so the three of us have a successful (read: spend lots of money) shopping experience (of course, all – ahem – essential running gear). (Note to self: shopping at an expo with like-minded friends is not so easy on the credit card.) The day passes in a blur of activity. Michele and I practically walk right into Paul (Stihl Going) as we make our way back to the hotel after our expo experience; Paul and his friends are just leaving the Sunday afternoon Red Sox game, and are passing directly in front of our hotel.

Sunday night finds us at a pasta dinner that Michele has arranged, another Taper Madness event, along with a few other running friends we’ve all collected along the way. It’s my first chance to meet Betsy and Matt, and another chance to see Beth, as well as the rest of the crew. The pasta is great, the shared wine is unexpected and tasty (thank you Betsy for ordering!), and the company is, as expected, exhilarating. But we all have a race to run Monday morning, so the evening ends early, and Michele and I head back to our hotel, the Buckminster.

Michele – a native of Natick (the fourth town along the Boston Marathon course) – has run the race countless times, but has never taken part in the downtown Boston experience with the requisite yellow school bus ride out to Hopkinton and the hours in Athletes’ Village there. So this year, she has joined me at the Buckminster, and together we make our plans for race day morning. This Sunday night, we both assemble our gear for the morning. Everything is going just fine, with only one problem: I can’t find my gloves for race morning. I’m certain that I packed them; in fact, I can actually see myself pulling them out of the basket in my bedroom back in Denver, and dropping them into my suitcase. Then where the heck are they? I empty my suitcase for an umpteenth time, doublecheck the dresser drawers in the hotel, but they are just plain missing. Dang. The expo is long since closed, so that’s not an option. Dang again.

On race morning, Michele and I stop at the Dunkin Donuts just a few steps down from the hotel for giant cups of joe to go, and then hoof it to Boston Commons to catch our bus. It’s cold – a good thing on race morning. But I’m annoyed that I have no gloves. I try to keep my hands warm around the big coffee cup, but it’s too well insulated, so it’s a poor provider of warmth. By now, Jody has joined us, and we start the long wait for buses. I watch all the people around us, envious of the gloves that everyone seems to be wearing. Everyone, that is, except me.

Eventually we make it onto a bus, and then out to Hopkinton and Athletes’ Village. Have I mentioned that I’m nervous before a race? Well, yeah. That, combined with my seven years experience at this race, makes me anxious to get to the start line as early as I can. We spend a little time in the village, have lots of photos taken together, and then I dump my extra clothes at the baggage bus, wish Michele and Jody good luck, and head up to my corral. Have I mentioned that it’s (blissfully) cold this morning? Well, yeah. That fact, if it holds, might make this a great race. If only I had gloves – I would be extremely happy!

The race gets underway, and then I’m on autopilot. This all feels so familiar – in a very good way. Still, it has an aura, one of the ultimate running event. I can’t quite believe my good fortune to be here yet again. Every year, as we start to run this stretch out of Hopkinton, I feel like a bit of an imposter. Every year, as we run this stretch, the crowds on the side of the road make me feel welcome and at home.

My expectations for the day are not really even formed as we start running; what do I want out of this day? Well, hopefully, to run somewhat faster than last year, when I took my time and made a photo journal of the course. Also, hopefully, to run a bit faster than my last several marathons, which have all been pathetically slow, but each one has been just a bit faster than the last. Finally, as always, I just want to have a good marathon day – which means I pray to not have a death march at the finish, and to finish strong. That might not seem so much to ask, but – and trust me on this – anyone who has ever run a marathon can attest to the fact that it’s huge.

Somehow, I end up on the left hand side of the road coming out of Hopkinton, right in the middle of the crowd. That has never happened before, and it screws up my ritual of high-fiving all the folks who line the road on the right hand side of the road there. Rather than darting across the road, I just settle in and run along. It is going to be, I’m already recognizing, one of those days where the race just happens on its own.

There is a beeper going off somewhere near me, and I figure that somebody has configured a watch or heart rate monitor to sound at some interval. There is so much noise at first – the announcers, the crowds, the people around me – that you can’t hear it clearly. But once we get out of the crowded start area, I hear it more definitively. It’s really annoying. The noise seems to come from directly behind me, and I keep expecting the owner of the noise to pass me along this stretch, and then the annoyance will end. But other then a few brief silent interludes, it keeps sounding. So very annoying.

The first mile marker comes up, and I’m pleased to see a time of 9:07 on my new Polar watch. My old trusty Timex died on the weekend of the Little Rock Marathon, and I thought it just needed a new battery. By the time I replaced the battery and realized that the entire watch was kaput, not just the battery, it was too late to get a replacement from Timex in time for Boston. So the replacement I bought just last week is a Polar watch (largely because of the heart rate monitor), but I haven’t really had time to get to know it at all yet. I consider myself lucky to have even gotten the thing configured with the HRM today, and I feel good that I can take a split with it.

Other than that incessant beeping that seems to be coming from a source near me, my only other complaint in the opening mile of this race is the fact that my hands are cold. I’ve decided to wear a long-sleeved technical shirt, figuring that I can take it off and tie it around my waist later when (and if) it warms up. But my hands are still freezing. I look at the gloves that people have started to discard along the way, and have fleeting thoughts of stopping to pick up a pair to wear for a mile or two. But thoughts of my own perpetually runny nose and how I handle it with my own gloves prevent me from doing anything quite so foolish. I figure that I will just deal with the cold hand syndrome.

It’s not until midway in my second mile that I have a revelation: the annoying beeping is coming from my own watch. Oh crud!!! How in the world am I supposed to deal with that for 24+ more miles? I think that I should have spent some more time with the Polar manual before wearing it today. But I’m afraid of screwing up my splits for the day, so I dare not to press any buttons on the watch. I try to accept that I just have to live with the never-ending beeping. Lord, help me through this race! I pray that the people around me don’t find this nearly as annoying as it is to me.

For no reason in particular, I veer to the left of the course today. I feel like someone on a train, just taking in the scenery. The mile markers go by rhythmically; after the first mile, my next few splits are 8:59, 9:00, and 9:08. These times are far better than my previous four marathons this year. What makes it particularly sweet is that I don’t feel like I’m working at all, and my heart rate is staying nice and low. What a treat.

But really, today I’m more concerned with my splits every 5k along this course than I am about each mile. Boston has timing mats at every 5k mark along the course, and they post your time on the BAA website in real time as you cross each mat. My new beau, The Professor, is also a marathoner, so he knows the Boston drill. He has, for the last several weeks, been telling me that he will be “watching” me run this race by sitting at his desk and watching my 5k splits as they are posted. Vainly, I want to run nice even splits. When I cross the first 5k mat in 28:01, I know that I’ve started too quickly; it’s just not going to be possible to maintain that kind of pace on this rolling course, especially with those hills in the last half of the run.

The watch beeping continues. I finally decide to try to address it, so I start pressing buttons on the Polar. I never figure out how to turn off the damn beeping, but I do discover lots of interesting information, just not the controls I’m looking for. I’m still worried about screwing up my splits, so I finally give up on my quest. Besides, by now I’m starting to tune out the beeping. The headwind, in any case, is carrying the sound somewhere far to the west of the race course.

The 10k mat arrives, and I pass it in 57:23, which makes for a net time of 29:22 for this 5k. I think of The Professor, and wonder what he will make of the fact that I’ve slowed by more than a minute. But, quite honestly, I’m still fairly pleased with my splits, since these middling miles are always the toughest for me on this tough Boston course. Today, I do not feel left behind on the uphill surges quite as much as I normally do. Today, my heart rate is staying nice and low, and I’m feeling fine. Except, of course, for the fact that my hands are still cold. I still have not given in to the temptation to stoop down and pick up a pair of discarded gloves. But I can’t say it hasn’t been a temptation.

In every marathon, there are little goals or markers along the way that you look forward to. These goals make the miles melt away. Today, one of my markers is Michele’s mom. Michele has provided a description of her mom, and precisely where she will be, just outside of Natick at the “Entering Wellesley” sign, on the left hand side of the road. Maybe I’m running on this side of the road all day in anticipation of seeing her. Moments after I see the Wellesley sign, I see a woman who meets Michele’s description to a “T”: black jacket, short dark hair, old-fashioned webbed lawn chair. I make eye contact from a little distance, and the woman smiles at me. I smile back, and run directly up to her. “Hi!” I say. “Are you Michele’s mom?” The woman gives me a startled look, then shakes her head, saying no. Oops! And I was so certain. Ah well. I can practically hear the Wellesley women from here. It occurs to me that the purpose of a marker is to give you a place to run towards, and it doesn’t really matter all that much beyond that.

I’m on autopilot now, just enjoying the day. I enjoy the screaming of the Wellesley crowd, and than I watch guys get kisses from the Wellesley women. I love that last downhill stretch after the college into the town of Wellesley, and check my time at the halfway point: 2:03:22. This is, by far, my fastest marathon of the year, and also my most unexpected. I feel good; my heart rate is in check, and the day is still cool. What more could I ask for?

Well, I might ask for gloves, but that seems a bit out of the question. We have picked up a pretty substantial headwind, but my only complaint about that is the fact that my hands are still cold. I’m kicking myself for not wearing a pair of socks on my hands.

My 5k splits have settled into a consistent pattern. At 15k I clock a net 29:42, and at 20k 20:53. I think about The Professor “watching” me, and it’s like having a camera on my shoulder. My 25k mark is a net of 29:41, and I feel happy that I’ve stayed so consistent throughout.

But now I’m screaming down the hill into Newton and the 16 mile mark, always my most emotional place on the course. For my first 5 Bostons, this is the point where Mick would find me on the course. I had grown so accustomed to having this place to look forward to that I started to take it for granted. But two years ago, when he was first running for mayor, he did not come to Beantown with me. Last year – since I felt so lousy anyway, and he had a better offer in France for the same weekend – I had no expectations that he would be with me. Today, The Professor aside, there is nothing that I’d like to see more than his tall lanky body, wearing his dorky sunglasses and (no doubt) a goofy cap, waiting for me at the bottom of the hill here – or on the start of the climb that leads up and over the freeway, out of Newton. But, of course, that is a ship that has sailed. There is no Mick. Just a tough stretch in a tough marathon course.

But this is perhaps my favorite part of the Boston course, and perhaps why I keep coming back here, wanting to get it right. The uphill stretch starts here, and it’s a measure of your readiness for the race: how you handle these hills. People who started far in front of me, people who went screaming past me on the downhills, people who have the speed but not the guts: this is where I start to pass them. This is where they start to walk. This is where I’ve learned to start digging deep.

Perhaps that’s what I love about this race: that you are required to dig deep for five tough miles, but that you are rewarded far out of proportion in this stretch. The people who line the race route in Newton pay you back in spades for bothering to be out here today. It’s also here, at mile 20, that I see Beth – my second marker along the course. Today, Beth comes out and jogs up hill with me, and updates me on my fellow Tapir runners. Paul went by, she says, not having a great day. Michele is up ahead of me, as is Bill Rodgers – but Bill Rodgers is not so far ahead of me as is Michele. Running with her gives me a boost, and then she peels off.

I hit the 30k mark with a split of 30:56, which is, in my estimation, not bad for an uphill stretch. I think The Professor should be pleased when he sees that my 35k split is 30:49. Even though I’ve slowed from the start, anyone who knows this course will recognize that my splits are remarkably even. I’m starting to really look forward to talking with him about this race, especially since, at this point – cresting Heartbreak Hill and heading into the last 7k of the race, most of which is downhill – I’m feeling really strong. This is why we run these races – to have these incredible last 10k experiences. Today is the first time I’ve had one of these days in a long time. Today is the first time I’ve felt like I’m racing towards the finish in over a year.

People have started to encourage me with a cry of “Go Pink!” on account of the fact that I’m still wearing my long sleeved very pink shirt. I love it. I remember, out of nowhere, that I had planned to put my name on my shirt one of these days, but completely forgot today. Ah well. My 40k split is 28:42, which is the second fastest of the day, and I’m ecstatic. The Professor has got to love that!

Everything about this race is familiar, and yet each time I run it, it’s all new. Today I see the stretch past Fenway in a new way; I’ve been walking here these last few days. We run directly in front of my hotel, and despite my joking ahead of time, I’m not at all tempted to stop early. I can taste this day coming together, can taste this finish that I had no reason to even hope for. As the miles have melted away, I’ve tried to do the mental math, and a new goal has gradually planted itself in my brain: to run sub 4:10.

Now, that number has no particular significance, just any old number drawn out of a hat. Only that number is faster than anything I’ve run in some time now, and suddenly it’s taken on a significant meaning to me. It’s what makes me pick up the pace a bit (my last five miles are not my fastest of the day, but pretty close to it), and to run with all my heart for the finish line. It’s what makes me feel like I’ve just conquered Everest when I cross that line in 4:09:39. Success. It’s like the hokey motivational poster. This is what success looks like. It’s not a PR, or a BQ, or even one of my fastest races. But it is – by far – the best effort I could put together today. And I’m extremely happy with that.

But it’s chilly (good for racing, bad for standing around at the finish), so I get my bag from the bus, put on some warmer clothes, and start the walk back to my hotel. I call The Professor as I walk, imagining that he will be, if not impressed, at least pleased with my 5k splits. “Oh, are you done already?” he says. “I’ve been so busy at work that I forgot to look at your splits.” Ah, so that’s how this will go. But I don’t let this get to me – not yet, I can’t let anything get in the way of this good feeling. It was a good marathon. It’s a good day.

Michele and I get back to the Buckminster at almost exactly the same time (both she and Jody have had very good days, too), and we head out shortly (after quick showers) to meet up with the rest of the Tapir group. After a missed cue or two, we find Paul at the Cheers bar, and have a great time over beers and burgers. It’s cool and rainy when we leave the bar, and my legs are toast from all the running and now all of tonight’s walking. But the T stations along the race route are still closed, so we’re consigned to walking; we use this as an excuse to stop for ice cream on our way back to the hotel.

Michele has an early flight in the morning, so she’s up and out of the hotel while I’m still (mostly) asleep. But I need to get moving, too, so I get up shortly after she takes off, and shower and pack up my stuff. It’s always surprising how scattered my stuff can be around a hotel room after such a short time. I double check the closet, the bathroom, the dresser drawers. Certain that I have everything packed, I pick my suitcase off the floor as I put on my coat. There’s a dark blob on the carpet. I know, even as I bend down to check it out, what I’m going to find: my gloves. These will be so nice to have for the next race.