Friday Night Vertical 2021

Friday Night Vertical 2021

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The Boston Marathon- I loved it!!


I never really cared. I thought I would hate it, but much to my surprise, I loved every minute of it. From start to finish I felt like a million bucks. I had originally planned to start off slowly, and I thought I did... until I looked at my watch and realized I was about 20 seconds faster on the first mile than I had planned. I realized that I felt great at the pace and decided to just stick with it.
I was using a pace band that I downloaded and thought it would be a struggle to keep up with it. It turned out that I was only using it to check if I was on pace at every mile marker. Most miles, I was within 1-2 seconds of the band.
I couldn't believe how great I was feeling and loving the crowds and all the people around me. I hit the halfway point and got a little worried that I would start to wane from there, like I did at the Outer Banks Marathon, but I just felt so good! Just before mile 14 in Wellesley, Marion, my mother-in-law, spotted me coming and yelled to me. I was so excited. I ran over to Bryan and John and gave John a quick peck on the forehead then jumped back in the race. It was so cool to see them there.
Right around mile 16, the hills started. Seriously? What hills? I bounded up them, passing red bib after red bib (red bibs were worn by the people who started in the first wave; I was wearing a white bib because I was in the second wave). I ran all those hills 10-20 seconds under pace. I didn't even feel them. All of that mountain and trail running I did really helped.
The race continued and Boston got closer. I couldn't believe how great I still felt at mile 22. This is the point I hit the wall in the Tobacco Road Marathon last year. But on this day, there was no wall!! We ran into the city. The crowds were screaming. The Citgo sign got closer. We turned onto Hereford and then finally the left turn onto Boylston!!! There it was, the finish line!!
I ran faster and then crossed the line with the biggest smile on my face and hands in the air. 3:17:44!! A major PR!!


The elation after finishing a marathon was something I had yet to feel. I've always felt beat and just wanted to sit down after finishing the last 3, but after this one, I just kept walking and didn't sit down for almost 2 hours.
I followed the finishers as we got our medals and food and headed to the gear bag pickup. As I was taking off my shoes, I got a surprise when Cindy from runningskirts.com came over to me to give me a hug and a congratulations. She had just finished about 30 seconds behind me. I was so excited; it was like meeting a celebrity.
After gathering my gear, I went in search of my friend, Bruce, from Fayetteville, NC, who had also run. He was in wave 1, so he had finished about 21 minutes ahead of me. Bruce had a plane to catch, so we made a quick stop at Au Bon Pain, then jumped back on the T for the ride back to the car at Braintree. We headed back to Marshfield, and that was it, the end of my fabulous day running the Boston Marathon.

4 comments:

  1. Awesome Leslie! Hope I get to run Boston with you one day, you are going to run it again right?

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  2. You bet! I'm planning on 2012! You'll get there some day, as long as the broken feet and deployments stop getting in the way. :)

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  3. Congratulations Leslie!! This is so inspiring!! I am really impressed with you.

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