Boston Marathon Recap

Ok, at long last here is the Boston Marathon report. I have been really busy with things at work and have had no chance to put this up until now.

The plan for the "race" was to run with Di and hopefully get her across the line around 2:55 or so. Well...we were pretty much on schedule through the half but things fell apart about a mile or two before that.

The first 2 miles were a bit fast but not a big deal, I think we averaged about 6:30 for those first two miles but quickly settled in to hitting miles between 6:40-6:50. This was perfect and right on our pace. I could tell that after about 8 miles Dianna wasn't doing very well because she had already stopped talking and I thought it was a bit early for that. I could see her laboring but hoped it was just some nerves getting out and that things would turn around by 10mi or so. Well that never happened and the remainder of the run consisted of about 10 stops, including one stint of her sitting in a medical tent. We stopped our watches for each stop and our the watch read about 3:05 when we crossed the line...unfortunately we had stopped for over 21 minutes and the clock read 3:26 as we crossed in front of the Boston Library.

What seemed to happen was that her calves just never warmed up and were shot by the half marathon. It was very warm in the sun and with the wind blowing it was very easy to get dehydrated. Each stop consisted of her stretching her calves and catching her breathe from some slight dizzy spells. I think the dizziness was also caused by the dehydration. In the future, if she wants to actually run a good marathon, we need to really practice taking fluids and whatever else (gu, etc.) she needs. Although she would say she drank lots, I watched her and not much actually went down her throat.

I was pretty sore for a few days, and I blame this on two things. One, I didn't run anything more than a 2 hour run and the race lasted an additional 1.5 hours. Additionally, the stop and go nature of the last 12+ miles really made me tight and it was really hard to run like that.

Overall, not the greatest day but it is a story to tell. I'm glad I was there for her through the tough day and I hope I helped her to the finish. I think her next idea is to drop back down to the 5-10k distances and work back there for a bit. This is good and I think where she should be. I, on the other hand, am starting back slow but plan to run a good half this fall, potentially the BAA Half.

That's all I got. I'll start "normal" running again next week and will begin posting my training again. More to come...