For days, the weather forecast had been calling for heavy rain, strong winds, and cold temperatures for Boston Marathon Monday, April 16, 2018. Although I have run in heavy rain, strong winds and cold temperatures in training, I had never ran a marathon in such conditions. With this knowledge, I packed all kinds of options of clothing to wear for the race including singlets, long sleeve shirts and jackets. That way, I could decide the day before or morning of the race in case the weather forecast changed.
The race Expo at the Boston World Trade Center was fun to go through. After picking up my bib and shirt, I stopped by various booths. I bought a special edition pair of Altra Escalante Boston racing shoes, an Adidas celebration jacket, and a few other mementos. In addition, I got to meet Scott Jurek who was doing book signing at the Clif booth for his new book, "North" which detailed his record-breaking Appalachian trail journey in 2015.
The Expo also had a seminar series, and I attended a few of those seminars. At the seminars, one of the talks focused on strategy and the course itself. Even these experts were saying they would run in a singlet even if there was rain, but would use arm sleeves. Few of the people even mentioned running in a jacket, and they didn't emphasize waterproof gloves either.
Sunday, the day before the race, I went to Fenway park for the Redsox-Orioles baseball game. The temperature there was 33-34 Fahrenheit with a northeast wind and ice pellets. I sat in a seat for 3 hours, quite cold, but was at least covered in the grandstand section.
On Sunday night, I set out my race outfit, planning on a singlet with arm sleeves, shorts, a buff around the neck, gloves, and a baseball cap.
On Monday morning, I changed my mind to a long-sleeve shirt rather than the singlet with arm sleeves. I went back and forth between also wearing a breathable rain jacket but eventually decided against it because I didn't want to part with it if I got too hot. I was fully expecting to warm up at my marathon race pace.
Much of my pre-race planning went into the logistics of the race including the subway map and schedule, the proper clothing at Athlete's village, and how I would make it back to the airport for my flight Monday evening.
At 5:30am Monday morning, I checked out of my hotel room at the Renaissance, and went to the WTC bus station to catch the silver line. I took the silver line to South Station, the Red T to Park station , and the Green T to Arlington. From there I dropped of my finish drop bag, walked in the rain through security checkpoints and boarded a bus by the Boston Commons. On this bus, I talked with a guy who said he only gets calories from gatorade along the course, and can't stomach gels or other foods when running. I told him I use gels, but that I had spent so much time on the logistics of this race, that I hadn't thought enough about race strategy or fueling plans. The bus left around 6:30am and we arrived at Athlete's village in Hopkinton around 7:30am. It had started pouring down rain during the bus ride. Now at Hopkinton, the ground was covered with a skiff of snow/sleet, yet the temps were in the low to mid 30s. Puddles were everywhere including on the grass which we had to walk through to get to the outhouses. A few large tents were set up in the village to shelter us from the rain, yet there wasn't enough room for all of the runners to sit down in this area. Many runners had to remain standing. We had to wait 2 whole hours before we could leave for the start line. I was in Wave 1 out of 4, so we got to leave first.
It was still pouring down rain when we left the shelter at Athlete's village. I was wearing two fleece jackets over my long sleeve race shirt plus a plastic poncho. I wore all of these layers to just before the starting corral where I left the two fleece jackets and poncho in a plastic bag. I had just 10 minutes to wait before my corral would start. Some runners kept their poncho or rain jackets on, but others like me just had our race shirts and shorts on. Most runners had gloves. Just as the national anthem was sung and the race started, a downpour came. I was already getting cold, and was wishing I had a rain jacket.
The race start line was fairly inconspicuous with no large overhanging banner, and no bells and whistles. I guess that is because the race started a long time ago with the elites and other divisions.
We were off on what was reported to be an abrupt steep downhill the first 1k. To me though it didn't seem steep at all. It was nothing like Mt Hebo Rd which I had trained on. The gradual drop didn't help my speed as much as I expected. In addition, there were so many runners on the road that it was impossible to run the speed I wanted. I really wanted to run 6:40 min/mile for the first 15 miles but the corrals I was in were running 7:15-7:20 min/mile. That's a huge difference. For 13 miles I was weaving back and forth trying to pass slow runners, and trying to hit the tangents of the road. My heart rate was ok in the upper 150s, but my pace stuck around 7:06 min/mile as I was passing up hoards of runners.
At mile 15, Wellesley College is on the right and they were screaming loud and encouraging all of us along. At this point I was still feeling ok. After the race though, I found out that sometime between mile 13 and 16, my heart rate abruptly increased to the 180s. This didn't correspond to any particular uphill, downhill or change in pace. From that point on however, the heart rate stayed high until my body slowed the pace down. The funny thing is I couldn't tell I was running slower, except that other runners started passing me, followed by more and more running going through the Newton hills. The Newton hills really weren't that steep. None of the hills, including the second hill or heartbreak hill were steep. The fact is that there were similar rolling hills all along the course. The net elevation gain for the whole course is over 1200 ft! That is quite a bit for a road marathon. I was so focused on staying warm for the race that I decided to not bother with energy gels, but just drink lots of gatorade. After all, my final two long runs were without any fuel and I ended up doing well on this runs.
Although I had warm gloves on, they weren't waterproof, and my fingers were going numb. At one point I pulled off a glove to adjust some clothing, and it took me more than 30 seconds to get the glove back on my numb hand. I noticed another runner to my right staring at me wondering what I was doing with my glove.
Cresting heartbreak hill, I was fully expecting hundreds or thousands of people there cheering us along but there were actually few people in the pouring rain. I didn't see many signs about heartbreak hill either. I was thinking, "Is this all it is?" I fully looked forward to the downhill, but the problem was I couldn't run fast down the hill. My quads were cold and stiff. My cadence and stride length were unusually limited. The quads almost felt numb even though they shouldn't be. I had never had that sensation before. I didn't quite feel dizzy but had this very unusual sensation of running on a treadmill. Maybe if was because droves and droves of runners were passing me up. Maybe it was because it felt like I had been running for hours and hours.
I remember some people to my right offering us hot chocolate. I briefly considered this but wasn't quite ready to walk yet so I didn't stop for some hot chocolate. In retrospect I wished I had taken some. It wasn't long--oh somewhere between miles 21 and 22 where I started taking walking breaks. I would walk for 30 seconds and that would give me energy to run for 3 minutes. Then I would take another walk break and then run again. I kept repeating this cycle which I hoped would enable me to make it to the finish line, before hypothermia set in. That was all that mattered to me by this time. These last few miles were averaging 11 min/mile. In miles 23-26, each time I would walk, I would get really cold especially in the downpours and wind. A few times near the end I wondered if I should stop at a medical tent. I could still feel my toes, I was not weaving, and my vision was ok, so I kept going.
The right on Hereford Street was ok, but wasn't that momentous. I didn't see any street signs here. The left on Boylston Street also was not very momentous for me. I didn't see the finish line sign, but only heard the announcer mention runners names as they were crossing the finish line. The announcer mentioned my name and said I was from Oregon. I ran all of Boylston Street and finished with a time of 3 hours 33 minutes 35 seconds. The half splits were 1:33 first half and 2:00 second half. It was 24 minutes slower than the Boston qualification marathon time. It was way slower than my dream time of less than 3 hours.
After I crossed the finish line I was handed a finisher's medal, a warming blanket, and a food bag.
I walked slowly while shivering to the drop bag area. There hundreds of finishers were shivering uncontrollably for minutes, waiting for volunteers to find our bags. After getting my drop bag, I walked to the subway station, still shivering. Upon returning to my hotel, I got my stowed-away luggage, changed, and headed to the airport for home.
On the airplane flight home Monday night I tried to analyze what wrong and find some meaning out of my experience. Much of the marathon I was miserable to be honest. I was discouraged, cold, and wet.
These were the roadblocks to meeting my time goal:
-The crowded streets made running my own pace not possible, which led to me passing many runners the first half of the race, thus using energy up
- The cold headwind, heavy rain and ice pellets made my muscle stiffen up, and chilled my body temperature
-I didn't stick with my fueling plan
-Side cramps at mile 20 starting my intermittent walking
-Water on roads led to less energy return with the foot strikes
-The abrupt high heart rate starting at mile 13-15 remains unclear but probably led to the bonk later in the race.
-The rolling hills, without long flats or descents made getting into a rhythm impossible
-Negative attitude hurt performance
What factors helped me to finish this race despite these roadblocks?
-Training: I had my best marathon build up ever with most consistent high miles, more tempo and long road runs
-Wearing the buff around my neck and ears, long sleeve shirt, and gloves probably prevented hypothermia, had I had not worn the buff, wore a singlet with arm sleeves and had cotton gloves
-Shoe choice: Asics Gel Hyperspeed were light enough that they didn't get heavy from the water logged roads
-Volunteers who braved the weather to provide water and gatorade
-Race organization that did all they could to help us get to the starting and finishing line
Some lessons I learned about my interaction with marathons:
-I perform better at smaller races, even if crowd support is less. Crowd support is nice but doesn't effect my performance, since I am intrinsically motivated primarily. Also, in crowded races, I feel insignificant, just another number.
-The longer the road race, the more weather influences the outcome
-I do better at races where I can get into a rhythm with long flat or downhill profiles
-I need to dress closer to how I would on my training runs
-I can't rely on only gatorade for calories at the marathon distance
-I would rather run marathons that have nature/scenery to look at than buildings/suburbs
-The more complicated the race logistics, the less focused I am on what really matters, like monitoring my heart rate, race pace, clothing choices, fuel intake and attitude
So what is the takeaway from my Boston Marathon experience?
At first I was hard on myself for the poor choices I made. Yet after reflection and reading other people's similar experience, I am more at peace.
Apparently this is the coldest weather the Boston Marathon has had in over 30 years. I would argue it may have been the coldest running weather in its history, if you include the body temperature drop with soaking rain and strong winds. Hypothermia caused most of the DNFs this year.
While starters overall had a 4-5% DNF rate, elite runners had a much higher DNF rate with a full 23 elite runners not finishing. This means that all of the finishers include me passed up 23 elite runners, including some of the most talented, fit marathoners in the World! This is the first year in many years an American woman won! Seven American women finished in the top 10! Six American men finished in the top 10!
What I take from this race is something more than whether I met my time goal. It's something more collective and philosophical. In each of us is a desire to accomplish goals, to push our limits, despite encountering obstacles than threaten our safety and comforts. In pursuing these goals collectively at this race, we helped each other by allowing others to draft off of us, setting a reasonable pace, and encouraging each other to keep running. I realize it was an honor to run the Boston Marathon. Each person there worked hard to get there. To toe the line, and then cross the finish line in the harshest weather conditions, will be a memory that won't be forgotten. Sometimes we do things in life that are downright miserable, exhausting, and discouraging. Yet, in keeping the focus, living the dream, we are changed by these experiences. We are better able to overcome the next time a novel challenge come up. This is what the Boston Marathon of 2018 means to me.
