Notes
I ran this race in memory and honor of 1946 winner Stylianos Kyriakides. Eleni and I stayed at Mike's in Hopkinton during marathon week to be close to all the activities for the Greek runners for the 2500 Anniversary of the marathon.
Even though the activities were amazing and wonderful, I felt worn out. It wasn't until the last 2 days before the race when I felt rested.
For the marathon I still had my goal of a sub 3:00. If my legs behaved I knew I had a chance at it if I ran a great race.. I went out at sub 3:00 pace, but I had to let that go when hamstrings tightened at mile 5. This is where I slowed down from 6:50 to 7:05 for the next 6 miles as I focused on running hard and relaxed. I carried my Cytomax bottle until mile 11, much longer than usual. As soon as I finished my bottle I picked up again to under 7:00 pace even though left soleus started bothering me. On the steep downhill, (15-16 mile) quads starting to go on me. Usually this is a fast mile, but I actually slowed to 7:02. Right then I changed my strategy for the Newton hills from running them even effort with pushing the downhill to pushing the hills and running the down easy because of the pain in soleus/quads. This worked out great as my splits were fairly even for the rest of the race. When I got to the hills I thought of them as 3 Adams St hills running with Reno. These workouts the past 2 years really do make a difference. I took a gel at mile 15. Usually I take these easily, but today I struggled getting it down and only got half of it.
I never felt dehydrated and I did get my second bottle from Dave at the top of heartbreak and I drank that from 21 to 23. This system works better for me than trying to take a bunch of gels and visiting the water stops.
The downhill at BC was the worst part of the race for me. The pain in soleus/quads was bad. So much so I didn't even feel the hamstring pain. I barely got under 7:00 for the decent.Several times during the race I wonder how Eleni was doing.At 23 she came to me. I could feel her presence. I thought that no matter how sore I was, she was going through much worse, so this kept me going. When I made the final turn on Boylston St, I heard Sherry yell out my name and saw Barbie. I then pushed it down that final long stretch and crossed the line in 3:04:28, which beat my BM 'PR' from last year by 44 seconds! My energy levels were excellent. I didn't feel as tired as previous years. I knew I could have gone 2-3 minutes faster if legs were fine, so I am psyched that I still got another 'PR'.
After the race I could barely sit down to put my cloths on. I cramped badly putting on the compression sleeves. I went back to near the finish with Barbie, Sherry and the girls to wait for Eleni to come in. I didn't want to miss here so I was scanning the runners with an eagle eye.We saw Eleni and we shouted out and she looked over with a painful smile and picked up to finish strong, finishing in 4:47:55... an amazing accomplishment considering went she went through the past 2 months! I am so proud of her as this race is what she has been dreaming/gearing up for the past few years,
Mike was another amazing story as his goal running with an injury was to break 6 hours to have his race official, He got in just under 5 hours so I am so happy for him.
Reno got the monkey off his back in a BIG way. After 2 Boston DNF, he ran an awesome race, clocking 2:42;27 and taking the prize as top 55-59! He ran so fast that he scored for our masters team. Whirlaway masters both men and woman won first place.
This was by far my favorite Boston Marathon. Even if I ran slow it would have been my favorite as the whole week was just simply amazing and incredible. An experience I will cherish forever.
First half: 1:31:37 (7:00 pace)
Second half: 1:32:51 (7:06 pace)
1798th place out of 22645
Ages 50 - 54 66th out of 186