Ok I’ve been working on and off on this report for a while and it was so long that I’ve broken it into the pre-race, the race, and the aftermath. Here’s the lead up to the race – distinguished from the angst-filled pre-port I posted punctually the actual weekend of.

PREPORT

The few days before Boston passed similarly to the few before Ironman Chattanooga. I wasn’t nearly as terrified without the specter of having to swim and bike and gearing up for (hopefully!) a max of four hours of work is a lot less intimidating than a half-day plus. But I still had the feeling I was headed for something really momentous. And I had more time in the race city and hotel to get worked up than I usually do. Most ominously, I was obsessively checking the forecast, and every time I opened my weather app the projected high for Monday, April 17th, 2017, had inched at least a degree higher.

A week before race day, the forecast called for highs in the upper 50s. That would have been perfect, and I felt like I was lucking out for my first Boston – knowing the event’s penchant for weird weather. By seemingly small increments, the predictions nudged higher each day until the Friday before we were staring down mid-to-high 60s. I started to get nervous.

I arrived in Boston early Saturday morning and my mama got into town that afternoon. Her presence both calmed and heightened my nerves. She tried to sooth me but just having another person there meant I had someone to tell my fears out loud, which made them more real.

Around her arrival the forecast crossed the dreaded threshold into the 70s, and through Saturday night and Sunday it kept climbing until Al Roker was predicting mid-to-high 70s. And the complicating factor with Boston is that the race is late – my wave (the second of four) was scheduled to depart at 10:25am – so however high that thermostat got I’d be running through the peak of it.

As much as it felt like Ironman repeating itself – that’s a truly sick dejavu – I used that hellish experience to assuage my fears: I would be running – just running! – in temperatures literally 40 degrees cooler than I’d swum and biked and ran through. I already wasn’t approaching Boston expecting a marathon PR – or even another BQ – so I just had to finish as well as I could under race conditions that weren’t nearly the worst I’ve encountered. And my mama was in town so if nothing else I got to spend the weekend with my favorite woman on the planet!

We went out and had a great dinner complete with a little too much wine on Saturday night at a French Brasserie called Gaslight. On Sunday we did a little retail damage/therapy and hit CVS and a small grocery near the hotel for everything I’d need fuel-wise between Sunday and Monday evening. We got bagels and peanut butter, bananas, apples, pretzels, and gatorade. I normally don’t go for sugary sports drinks like that but Josh had advised me to up my Sunday-electrolyte intake to try and head off the added depletion inherent in a hotter-than-planned run.

As we busied ourselves buying things we needed and didn’t need around the city, it was hard not to notice the heat. That Sunday warmed up quickly and stayed hot in the mid-80s until after the sun went down. It was a shock to the just-out-of-winter-hibernation system. Monday was supposed to be a little cooler, but it was hard to imagine the temperature would drop too much when it was still so hot as night fell.

My cousins Carol and Mike also arrived from New York on Sunday. (Having each run Boston a couple times before they didn’t feel the need to come up Saturday to buy all the things and panic in the city like I had.) Carol had discovered my mama’s and my hotel was doing a pasta buffet and had secured us a reservation. Not having to travel any farther than the lobby for dinner was great – and the pasta was bland and plentiful, which was also great! For anyone running Boston in 2018, I highly recommend the Boston Park Plaza’s pre-race pasta pig-out!

Over dinner I peppered my pasta and my cousins (that was lame, not sorry) with last minute questions mostly about logistics. Boston is a point-to-point race so despite the 10:25 start time I would have to be up early to catch one of the billion shuttles to the start line. I had the usual butterflies about leaving myself enough time to arrive and bathroom (at least once), but I didn’t want to show up too early and shortchange my sleep or sit around Athletes Village too long.

Once we’d fully hashed and rehashed logistics and eaten as much as we could stomach, Mike and Carol headed back to their hotel a few blocks away, and mama and I headed upstairs so I could lay out my clothes and freak out about the weather some more. We distracted ourselves with Sunday night HBO and I reviewed my race plan from Josh a few more times.

I’d gone over the plan repeatedly but now armed with the unwelcome forecast, Josh had advised I’d need to adjust his original numbers. The key would still be to hold back and resist the inevitable adrenaline. Now though it was anyone’s guess what that holding back would look or feel like.

Around 10pm momalach and I tucked ourselves in and I sleptish till the alarm sounded at 6:30am, race morning. Race organizers had suggested athletes in wave two arrive at the shuttles – conveniently a block from the Park Plaza – between 7:00 and 7:40am. As I was in corral seven of eight I was aiming for the tail end of that window.

I spent an hour dressing, changing my top, applying sunscreen and an extra liberal layer of body glide, and dementedly refreshing the weather app. At 7:30 I bid my mama adieu and joined the throng of runners excitedly vibrating to the shuttle queue. I boarded a big yellow school bus at 7:45 and at 7:51 we pulled away from Boston Commons, officially on our way for the day.

The ride took almost an hour during which our driver blared an eclectic oldies station – my seatmate was particularly put off when Come Sail Away hit the speakers, sure it would now sit in her head the whole race. Driving past highway exit signs for Newton and Wellesly forced us to confront the fact that we were driving very far away from Boston and we would in fact have to run all this way back.

After the musical trip down (someone’s) memory lane, we debussed at 8:45am at Athlete’s Village. The energy walking into this crowded outdoor holding area absolutely buzzed. People were noting how warm it already was (it had been 65 when I got up at 6:30 and was already starting to push 70) but nonetheless veterans and first-timers alike were ecstatic to be there.

Carol and Mike were in wave three so I knew they weren’t there yet. I posted up on a spot of grass near the porta lines and force-fed myself half a bagel and peanut butter, water, and gatorade. (I’d already had half a bagel and PB and a banana at the hotel.) After studying the bathroom lines, at 9:30 I got in the one that had seemed to be moving the quickest. There I met two women from Minnesota who were also running their first Boston. They were so happy that just a few minutes talking to them eased my remaining nerves. I shared my bagels with them and when we got to the front of the line they insisted I go in front of them as they were in wave three.

After I’d bathroomed and said goodbye to my new friends, the race announcer was calling wave two to head to the corrals. I felt like I’d timed the morning pretty well, and as I made my way out of the village on the .7 mile walk to the start line, I was just really happy to be there. No more anxiety, no nervous tummy, just happy gratitude – to my body, my support team, my fellow racers, and to all the Bostonians already lined up on the route handing out water, food, and high fives.

Right before the corrals there’s a massive set-up of porta-potties, and while my stomach was feeling remarkably settled, I stopped to make use of my last opportunity. I got in a short line, and as it was about twenty minutes till go time, I threw back a heavily-caffeinated gu while I waited.

I used the bathroom and my belly felt even more settled, and for some stupid reason, I decided to still take the Imodium I’d been carrying in my sports bra. That lil digestive depresser had been crucial when I BQ-ed at Mountains 2 Beach last May, so I just figured I should stick with what had worked. But I had been so so much more nervous that morning. And that day had also been about 20 degrees cooler, necessitating a smaller caloric haul to get through the race. I didn’t stop to consider any of these obviously important factors though before I threw that tiny innocuous-looking white pill back…(more on this obviously to come in the actual race report.)

I floated on air and enthusiasm to corral seven and only had to wait a few moments before we were being called toward the start. As we shuffled forward I took it all in, cued my music and my Garmin, and I felt ready. It was already hot, and impossible to ignore how strong the sun felt on my exposed shoulders and back, but the whole thing felt eminently doable. It was the Boston freaking Marathon!