Boston 2010

A quick report from the Boston marathon. Yes we know it was four days ago but we hurt so much even our fingers had post-marathon ache and we're only just back to normal typing speed and accuracy. Knd-of. Mya-eb.

Compared to anything we see in Nova Scotia, the Boston Marathon is huge. Granted, it is not the largest marathon in the world; both London and New York (for two) are bigger, but for those of us (well the TA) used to smaller, more intimate events, Boston is neither small or intimate and can even present one with an unexpected attack of agoraphobia.

It's a point to point, finishing in Boston. Here's the map from our Garmin;

The race lays on a fleet of school-buses that leave Boston Common starting at 06:00 to take close to 26000 runners to the start-village at Hopkinton. Here you chill out under a tent in a field ringed by portapotties, enough for the (ahem) runners. We reckon the two things you can't get in Boston on marathon day for love nor money are school buses and portapotties.

The one drag about the event is the long wait to the start; we got to Hopkinton just before 07:00 but our numbers weren't called to the corral until just past 09:00 for the 10:00 start. It was a bit chilly to start, maybe 5C, but the sun was out and the temperatures started to climb. It ended up about 15C at the finish. For those of us from Nova Scotia still unaccustomed to temperatures warm enough to melt snow, this was welcome news. Warm enough to feel comfortable and dispense with all those layers but not heat that we were not yet acclimatised to.

It ended up being an arm-warmers and singlet kind of day. We were going for safety in numbers. Arm-warmers were the hot item at the Expo, the Asics booth sold out of them and there were many, many pairs on the course. What is interesting is how many ended up "on the course". Your average runner, it seems, does not know the trick is to roll them down into two oversized wrist-bands when the going gets hot. Many were peeling off their warm-warmers and either dropping them on the road, carrying them or carrying them and then dropping them when they blew up!

The course itself has an interesting profile. It trends downhill for much of the first 20 kms before a series of hills around Newton between 25 and 32 km, including the infamous Heartbreak. After this it's flat/downhill to the finish on Boylston Street. The hills aren't actually that bad in terms of grade or length; one of them is a highway overpass, and overpasses are ridiculed the world over for only pretending to be hills ("he can only win a climb on an overpass"). In Halifax terms, these hills are nothing compared to Quinpool or Bayview or even Devonshire. The problem with the hills at Boston is that they come at 25 km, right aboout the time you start to think about hitting the wall.

The course is very well supported, and not just by waterstops and cops. There are crowds for pretty much the whole 42.2 km route and the closer you get to Boston, the deeper and louder and more vocal they become. The girls from Wellesley College at the half have such a repuation for volume that they have their own banner a few hundred metres out warning you to be ready for the scream. The Wellesley girls are really quite a boost to the spirit, well, it may also be the offer of kisses too. Not to be outdone, the frat-boys at Boston College five miles later offer beer.

Thinking about it, we're not sure why we didn't take one; water, complex sugars and some ethanol to help dull the pain. Or a kiss for that matter (at Wellesley). Next year.

By the time you get to the Citgo sign at Kenmore Square with a 2 kms to go the crowds are incrediblely deep and loud and there is the proverbial wall of sound that carries you to the finish. Compared to local events where it's five people, the chip-guys, a couple of cows and the TD, it's quite a change, and a welcome one; that's one thing we don't mind doing differently on race day! Then it's the right on Hereford and left onto Boylston (pretty much the only course directions you need in the whole event) and the longest 800m of your life to get to the finish.

We think there were 9 TNsers there. We met into Shawna Murdock Moore and Terry Moore at the Expo. This was Shawna's second marathon of the year, and she was hoping for better weather after getting sub-zero windchills at the Disney Marathon in January (sub-zero in Florida? WTF?). She got it and stopped the clock on pretty much 4hrs exactly.

We also bumped into Steven Saunders and Beverley Richardson the day after the race; bumped being an apropos term as we still had that "walking like a newly born foal" gait going on. Steve had a storied race, getting cut up at a water-stop and hitting the ground hard enough to draw blood. Still, he got back up, dusted himself off and posted a decent 3:42

Finally, Marie-Claude Gregoire ran a 3 minute PB. Running lore says that you don't run PBs on Boston yet this is the second time she has done just that. Chapeau!

Here is a list of all the TNS finishers and times;


Elizabeth Corkum - 4:11:33
Gayland Goodwin - 3:42:50
Marie-Claude Gregoire - 3:24:46
Denise Mader - 4:02:35
Shawna Murdock-Moore - 4:00:43
Steven Saunders - 3:42:51
TurnAround - 3:14:31

And TNS Banquet guest-speakers

Dave Nevitt - 3:04:00
Ray Williams - 4:30:23? (it was 3:20-something we think but there must be a chip-problem).

And no, before you ask; both guys got the bus to Hopkington and ran back - they didn't run out as well!


Well done all.


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