Bean
Town or Bust:
Running
the Boston Marathon in 2001
Note: Photo Links updated: April 2006
Ah,
the Boston Marathon!
Even if you’ve never been to a carbo-loading party, you probably have
some feeling for this venerable institution. The
Boston
Marathon is one of the oldest races in the world, and after 100 years,
it is still the Mecca for runners obsessed with the 26 miles of a full
marathon race.
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Getting
into Running
Oddly
though, when I first started running in 1988, I didn’t think much about
going to Boston. I was 38 years old, and getting fatter by the day, so I
started working-out at the Health Club. My weight dropped somewhat, but
when I left the gym and began jogging outside, my weight went into
free-fall. In a short time, running and racing were fixtures in my social
life.
It
wasn’t long before I was caught up in the mystique of running a full
26-mile marathon. I quickly learned the special issues of “Hitting the
Wall” and coping with the elevated level of training needed just to
complete the distance. At this point, I learned that a good target for an
average runner was to try to “Qualify for Boston”.
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Qualifying
for Boston
It
you wish to run the Boston Marathon, you must first qualify by proving
that in the last year you completed another marathon within a specified
time. When I completed my first marathon, I was almost a full hour off the
qualifying time, and progress was disappointing when I tried to improve on
this. Within a few years, I began to realize that I had two unusual
problems: I didn’t absorb iron properly, and I seemed to store less fuel
than the average distance runner. Simply put, I was not really built for
running long distances. It took a surprisingly long time to get these
problems reasonably solved, but, by 1999 I had broken the barrier and once
again I began to focus on the big trip to Bean Town for my 50th
birthday.
Last
spring, I narrowed the gap to 7 minutes, and I was very serious about a
simple strategy to drive this home. Statistics on runners showed that for
a person my gender and weight (160 lbs), each pound I loose will reduce my
marathon time by about 1 minute. My wife Toni used a low carbohydrate diet
to loose some weight, and she guided me though an 8 lb weight loss. Armed
with this new optimism, I targeted the Canadian
International Marathon in October for my qualifying race. As the race
day approached, a friend named Theresa offered to pace me through the
crucial last 13 miles of this important race. We both understood that the
time was right, and this was the race of a lifetime! To my delight, the
formula worked, and I finished with a 3:27, a full 3 minutes under the
qualifying time.
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The
Trip to Boston
It
wasn’t long before I received the legendary postcard from Hopkinton
confirming my registration for the race. Toni and I hadn’t been to
Boston for ages, so we booked a long weekend at a Georgian-style
bed
and breakfast in the fashionable
Back
Bay area of Boston. The day before the race, we went to the convention
centre to pick-up the bib number, and we attended a delightful seminar on
the history of women in the Boston Marathon. I was thrilled to have my
picture taken with one of the “Legends of Women’s Running”, Olympian
Greta
Waitz. To my surprise,
Roberta
Gibb was also there. While Greta was famous for her winning marathons,
Roberta ran as a “bandit” or unauthorized participant in the Boston
Marathon in the mid 60’s. Remember that it was the
respected
medical opinion that women just couldn’t run marathons, and if she
were caught lurking about the start-line, then she would have been
arrested for “her own good”.
On
the advice of friends, my plan was to just “jog” the race, and not
commit to a serious hard run. The Boston Marathon is an unusual event. It
is logistically complex and exasperating, and it is difficult to prepare
for the hills so early in the year. With this in mind, I ran an 18 mile
race 3 weeks earlier, and was targeting a local marathon in mid May. So
much for plans, because on the day before the race, a friend convinced me
to reconsider running it hard, because, who knows, it might be the only
time that I qualify!
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The
Unforgettable Race
Race
day began at 5:30 AM, with a subway ride to the Boston Common, where
school buses were waiting to take us to the start line, 26 miles away in
Hopkinton.
By 7:30 AM, I was settled-in at the Athlete’s Village with 15,000 others
from all over the world. This area was a series of large tents erected in
a schoolyard where we sat on the bare ground and chatted to our neighbours.
We waited here until 11 AM, and then checked our bags, and began a long
procession to the start-area. With 15,000 runners at the start,
you can imagine that it stretched several blocks, and they were very
strict about where you were positioned. When the gun sounded, it took over
5 minute to simply reach the start line, but, armed with a computer chip
tied into my shoe, the actual time that I crossed the start-line was
fairly recorded.
The
weather was much warmer than predicted at 5 AM. Although they threatened
temperatures in the 30’s and winds off the ocean at 20 mph (not kmph),
it was well over 60 with a light wind in our faces. Within 6 miles, I
began to shed my outer clothing, as we progressed through the downhill
sections of the first 12 miles. The route was solid with cheering
supporters, but it reached a climax as we approached Wellesley College. In
the days when the Boston Marathon was a men-only race (before Roberta
Gibb’s famous run), the young women of Wellesley
were notorious for taunting the exhausted runners with their high-pitched
cheers.
After
Wellesley the course levels-off, and we enter the famous Newton Hills.
Most races are won in these hills, and this year was no exception. Lee
Bong Ju from Korea trashed the Kenyans right here in the Hills.
From my perspective (much further back), the Newton Hills are
difficult, although there are bigger hills around Toronto. From mile 16 to
21, you do the 3 Newton Hills, and then the infamous “Heartbreak
Hill” just before you descend into the outskirts of Boston. I
remember breathing a sigh of relief as we crested Heartbreak Hill, but
when I reached the long flat stretch into Boston, I knew that I was
trashed. The
Citgo
Sign at Kenmore
Square was 1 mile from the finish, and it looked awfully far. I could
feel panic welling-up inside me when I thought about the last 5 miles. To
calm myself, I imagined that I was on familiar turf, tired but heading
home along Toronto’s Lakeshore, with a hot shower and hearty breakfast
awaiting me. Of course this panic was mostly caused by Toni’s promise
that if I didn’t finish, then the Boston Marathon jacket, sweater,
tiepin and coffee mug were all going to Goodwill!
The
finish
area was pure chaos, and I nearly went hypothermic because our bus
with my warm clothes broke-down on the way from Hopkinton. Luckily, I
connected with Toni and she dealt with the late bus, while I headed to the
B&B via the subway. The cold wind, and the build-up of toxins in your
body after a long race can make you very nauseated, and this race was no
exception. The trick is to keep moving and stay calm, while your liver and
kidneys digest these toxins. It reached a crisis when I was stalled in the
subway, and I had to rush off early to regain my composure. I will never
forget the Japanese women who followed me off the subway that day, and sat
with me until I felt better.
The
Boston Marathon had plenty of surprises, but the biggest was at Logan
Airport on the next day, when
Lee
Bong Ju, the winner of the race, boarded the plane to Toronto with us.
The marathoners spotted him immediately, and we all lined-up for pictures
and
autographs.
It was amazing to see him casually in the baggage claim area at Pearson
Airport with his suitcase, and a large cardboard box containing something
I can only dream about!
Note: Photo Links updated: April 2006
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