I Love Boston!

What a week! Saturday morning I put on an egg hunt for our ward's primary, which is absolutely enormous. We had about 70 kids show up. We played a few games in the gym, then released the kids in waves with the younger ones going first. That was fun. To keep the older kids busy, we played duck-duck-goose.

After the egg hunt, Bruce and I went to Chuck E Cheese for a birthday party. A kid from Bruce's playgroup turned a year old, so he had this completely over-the-top bash at the most over-stimulating place ever. I just can't say enough how much I dislike Chuck E Cheese. The music was horribly loud, so I could hardly talk to the other parents. The only thing to eat is pizza, which I can't have. There were giant dancing animals and bright lights, so Bruce couldn't even eat anything he was so spazzed out. It also didn't help that it was a Saturday afternoon and there were 4 other parties going on at adjacent tables. Bruce dug his fingers in his cake, so I went to the bathroom to wash him off. There was a trail of orange pizza puke leading into one of the stalls. Ick. We didn't stay much longer.

Saturday night we had a Greater Boston Track Club reception. We went for an hour or so, but didn't stay long. Bruce's bed time came quickly and he got quite fussy. No one seemed to mind but us though. He's the only kid on the team; no one else has kids so he gets a lot of attention.

Sunday we rested, went to church, and ate lots of pasta. I met up with some old BYU teammates (Amy Cooper and Nicole Anderson) Sunday night too.

Now for what you've all been waiting for... Marathon Monday!

Monday morning I got up around 7 and gathered all my things. I had a dream that I missed the start of the race, so I was totally paranoid about getting out the door on time. We picked up one of my teammates who lives a mile away and was also running the marathon, then Scott drove us to meet up with another teammate. We climbed in the team van at 9 am and started driving out to the starting line.

It was pretty much the longest drive ever. I didn't like the thought of running all the way back at the time. Eventually we ended up in Hopkinton, where half of the roads were closed. We parked at a state park and caught a shuttle to the starting line. By the time we got there, it was almost 11. The start was crazy. There were baggage busses at the top of a half-mile long hill (half mile from the start line, that is). So we stripped off our clothes and threw them in the busses, then froze on the way to the line.

The start this year was divided into two waves of runners; I was in the first wave. Each wave had 10 "corrals." It really was like herding cattle. I was herded into the 3rd corral with a thousand other runners (yep, not even exaggerating here). When the gun sounded, it took me two minutes to actually get to the starting line. I started my watch and off I went.

It was so packed that I couldn't even get a full stride in for about four miles. I just elbowed people and got swept along with the stampede. There was a massive sea of people ahead of me. I just saw the tops of heads and shirts flying off for the first mile (some people kept clothes on through the start, then discarded them on the course). After the first mile, lots of guys must have had to pee. Every 50 meters or so, there'd be some guy running off the course a few feet, then doing his business off the side of the road. I just kept my eyes on the road.

The first half of the race was great. I ran with a teammate for 10 miles, then she went ahead (she ended up having a really amazing race). I was feeling okay through about 20 miles, then the last 6.2 miles were quite hard. Everyone always talks about the huge hills at Boston, but they really weren't that bad. Even Heartbreak Hill wasn't all that its made out to be. The hills in the Akron Marathon were about three times longer and even steeper too, so that made the Boston hills look like nothing at all. Still, I was pretty pooped out at the end. I will attribute that to my not running any really long runs before this marathon. I ran 18 miles in February, but then pulled my hamstring and couldn't do much more training.

Anyway, I ended up coming in at 3 hours, 9 minutes, and 31 seconds. I ended up a bit hypothermic and had a few blisters, but did pretty well otherwise. Will I do it again? Absolutely. It was awesome. There were one million spectators on the course; it was seriously packed on both sides from start to finish. My ward showed up by mile 19 and my coworkers watched from mile 20. Scott and Bruce were at mile 16, then met me at the end. There were kids handing out oranges and bananas the whole time, and some kids that just held out their hands to be slapped on the way. It was very cool.