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I'm re-posting this Strava entry here in tribute to Ethan Wolin's cheering

April 17, 2023 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
The Boston Marathon is "The World's Greatest Footrace." So says the framed poster in my bathroom that I stared at every night while brushing my teeth. I've probably run 50-100 road races in my life—16 of them marathons—and none have the same magic as Boston. Sure the New York and Marine Corps marathons have big crowds, but no other city is famous for a race the way Boston is. People don't hear "New York" and immediately associate it with "Marathon" as they do for Boston. And for Bostonians themselves, it's a HUGE deal. The entire state has the day off! Okay, technically they have the day off for Patriot's Day, the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, but that's not a coincidence; the organizers of the first Boston Marathon in 1897 chose that day to celebrate the local historic connection). My favorite part, as always, was the first 13 miles, not just because I'm feeling better during that part, and can talk and make friends and laugh at the funny signs.  Every year, I find it so moving to see the residents of the 5 small towns we pass through gathering along Main Street in huge crowds, cheering madly for us like we're doughboys shipping off to France to fight in the Great War. The smell of an all-day barbeque, the eager barking of dogs, the little kids collecting high fives, the Hindu priests from the Sri Lakshmi Temple in Ashland handing out lemonade, the hoot of the train as it passes wishing us luck.  Although I don't know anyone who lives out here (who isn't running), every year someone I know makes the schlep out to cheer or volunteer. This year it was my GDS protege Ethan Wolin, whose voice rose above the din (somewhere in Framingham I think), and my friend from the Harvard Political Violence Workshop Kaitlyn Chriswell, volunteering at an aid station in Natick with her Rugby team.  My main thought in those early miles (aside from "what's my pace?" "Am I going too fast?" and "Do I really need to pee so soon after leaving the port-a-john or is my mind playing tricks on me?") was "I am so happy to be alive!"



Okay, now that we've got all those feelings out of the way, here's what most of you who are still reading this far have been asking me for the past 3 days: a race recap. The weekend started with a narrowly averted crisis: my flight from Chicago (where I'd been attending a conference) was delayed 4 hours and I completely missed the Marathon Expo where I needed to pick up my bib. Luckily, Jon Ettinger and one of the coaches from the BAA Running Club checked with the help desk, and they pulled my number out of the stack and brought it to a secret last-minute pickup tent on Boston Common the next morning.  I don't know if most races have this, but it doesn't hurt to ask! 



After retrieving my bib, I dropped my bag in the VIP tent and boarded the special bus for members of the BAA Running Club where I was excited to see teammates Lindsay Willard, Katsu, Adam, Mike, and Amanda whom I hadn't seen in 4 years. I was even more excited about the slice of apple pie I had brought along for breakfast.  For those curious about my pre-race nutrition, I like to carbo-load the night before with sushi and then have a bagel and banana when I get up.  From now on, I'm adding pie to this mix as well (a la mode for dessert and au natural the next day).  I also limited my fluid intake to just a water bottle, a cup of coffee, and half a Gatorade.  More than that, and I'd be more worried about having to go to the bathroom than getting dehydrated, given the weather was in the 50s and overcast. Besides, there are fluid stations every mile of the course, most of which I skip anyway.



My seed time had me in corral two, meaning I crossed the start line at 10:01 AM, a minute after the first non-elite runners.  The pack was pretty thick for the first half mile, slowing us to probably a high 6es or 7-minute pace but it thinned out soon enough that I doubt anyone's race was seriously hampered.  I did a great job pacing myself in the early miles, consciously holding myself back while still trying to keep my "A-goal" of sub-2:45 within reach.  This would require going about a 6:15 pace, so I played around 6:19 which felt fine thanks to the net downhill, but then after I hit two 6:30ish miles (miles 5 and 7, I think), I realized that it probably wasn't in the cards, and I needed to just let my body do its thing. 



My overall strategy which I learned years ago in the BAA (I think from Wayne Levy) is to divide the Boston Marathon into uneven thirds: the first third is till the Netwon Firehouse (mile 17.3), the second third till the top of Heartbreak Hill (mile 21) and the last third is to the finish. The point is to make sure you don't go too hard on the initial down hills and blow your quads out before the uphill middle third. So for the most part I let people pass me and eventually stopped looking at my watch every mile because I thought it would put too much pressure on me to speed up. Instead, I focused on running my own race. Perhaps too much so, since I didn't really talk to anyone like usual.



In the second third, I also ran well. I started passing people, even on the uphills and took advantage of the flat sections in between to build up my pace.  I was feeling good and enjoying the light rain. Completing each hill gave me a sense of accomplishment, and I remained optimistic. My legs felt like they had the right amount of tiredness, though with a lot more weird hip muscle aches than normal. The glute injury I'd been so worried about and had been treated for two weeks never flared up. However, I really should have started paying attention to my pace again, instead of refusing to look at my watch.  Though I took some satisfaction in passing people, I'd really lost touch with the feeling of competing, either with myself or anyone else.  I was focused almost entirely on pace and pain management rather than being in a race and didn't try to conjure up any images of friends or favorite songs to inspire myself.  My mentality was one of "conserve and endure".



Thus, when I reached the final "third" and started the mile-long descent into Brookline, my body was feeling as it should have (weary, not yet wrecked) but my motivation was lacking. "I'll just keep conserving for one more mile," I told myself, without any sense of what exactly I was saving all that energy for. At one of the 5k marks, I saw a clock that suggested to me I wasn't even going to make my B-goal of sub-2:50, yet my C-goal of sub-3:00 seemed safe enough that I didn't have to put up much of a struggle. Instead, I continued cruising and waiting, telling myself each mile that the next mile was where I'd begin to fight. In the meantime, competitors were streaming past and my pace was withering from 6:45 to 7:10 to 7:50 in the final mile.  My body was aching and stiff of course, but I was content to just continue treating it as a tempo run rather than trying to duel with pain.  There were two moments I sped up: The first was when I saw Caroline Picard (West Philly runners teammate) cheering in Washington Square. The second was shortly thereafter when John Biersteker (high school teammate) shouted my name and then proceeded to run parallel to the course along the edge of the trolley tracks for a block at a pace faster than I'd been going. It reminded me of my first two marathons, before the 2013 Bombing, when bandits could still jump in to pace their friends. In any case, I should have taken the hint and started fighting but instead cruised to a not-exactly comfortable but not-really-agony-inducing finish of 2:53:44.  I can't complain, really. It's my 5th fastest of the 8 times I've run Boston, and faster than I ran last time in 2019. 



My training this season was substantial in some ways: 6 long runs of 18-23 miles, high mileage weeks of 75, 80, 100, and 83 miles, two hill workouts, and a tempo run with 4-10 miles close to marathon pace almost most weeks (plus tempo-ing during the long run).  Somehow, I managed to stay healthy (sleep and abs, I suppose). But at the same time, I really only trained for 8 weeks; prior to late February, my mileage was in the 20s and 30s and my workouts sparse-to-non-existent. I could have been more disciplined about my nutrition as well. Still, on the whole, it was a great training cycle, with epic runs to the North Pole and Air Force One, discovering new neighborhoods, 4-6 books completed on audible, fun post-run brunches with West Philly pals, and two races with college friends (including my second-fastest 10-miler). I had a great time in Boston as well, staying with cousins, eating pie, and celebrating all afternoon with Rob Savitsky, Elizabeth Shope, Caroline Picard, Emma Bedoukian, and others. So while the race result itself wasn't a dream come true, the race overall was great (21 miles of it) and the trip, the training, and the whole experience, well worth it.