John Hankins
For the last three years I have occupied myself during the winter months by training for a Spring Marathon. My 3:11 time at the Whidbey Island Marathon in Washington State last April was fast enough to qualify me of the 116th running of the Boston Marathon. The lure of Boston was too much for me, and I signed myself up. I’d run the race three times in the 80s and once in the 90s so I (mostly) knew what I was getting into. I had trained well for the race this year, putting in the miles and the speed work since December on the roads and on the dreaded tread mill.
Optimal marathon weather is 45 to 55 degrees and overcast. Anything hotter than that starts to impact performance and create general misery among the participants. With a week to go before the big race the forecast was looking rosy – high temps in Boston on Marathon Monday of 62 degrees. As the week wore on, however, the forecast deteriorated, with the final version promising a record high for the date of 88 degrees. We started getting e-mails from the race director encouraging us to re-consider competing. He remarked: “For the overwhelming majority of those who have entered to participate in the 2012 Boston Marathon, you should adopt the attitude that THIS IS NOT A RACE. It is an experience.” Approximately 5000 runners opted out based on the weather and the organizer’s promise that anyone that did not run could use their qualifying time for the 2013 version. The other 18,000 of us toed the line.
After 116 years, the organizers of Boston have things pretty well figured out. They start the race in three waves separated by 20 minutes. Each wave is organized into corrals of 1000 runners each that are arranged by your qualifying time. The result is a fairly orderly start, where you can be assured that those in front of you deserve to be there.
The Boston Marathon runs downhill for several miles from the start, and trying to keep a lid on your pace when the adrenaline is flowing, everyone around you is moving along, and you’re going down-hill is almost impossible. Through the first five miles or so I was clipping right along, and although I knew better, I was on that 3:10 pace that I’d been dreaming about; however, the heat started taking its toll, and I backed off my pace a bit. By 10 miles I was still in control and moving along, on track to beat a 3:20. Water stops were coming every mile, and I was slugging about 8 ounces Gatorade at every stop and putting another cup of water on my head.
By 13 miles the temperature had climbed into the mid-80s, and my brain, after consulting with my legs, decided that it would be OK to walk, just a little bit, at each water stop. By 16 miles, the once a mile walks were getting longer, but I was still moving along OK. At Wellesley College we passed throngs of beautiful and vocal young ladies, with several hundred of them holding signs that said: “Kiss me. . . I’m (fill in the blank)”. I decided this was an opportunity that I could not pass up, and I stopped to smooch a woman whose sign said “Kiss me, I’m from Japan”. I’d always wanted to kiss a woman from Japan, so I can report that I achieved exactly one goal at the Boston Marathon this year.
Energized by the rambunctious crowd and the motivational kissing, I and the rest of the crowd ran (mostly) up the dreaded hills of Newton, finishing with Heartbreak Hill between 20 and 21 miles. From the top of Heartbreak Hill it is downhill for five miles to the finish in Boston, starting with a somewhat steep downhill leading off of the summit. For weary legs that have just trudged up the big hill and are now stretching out the stride, there is a high potential for leg cramps – I had not experienced these before at Boston, but this year they came on with a vengeance, with one hamstring seizing so badly that I had to hang on to a street sign to avoid falling over.
I found myself in the awkward position of still having five miles to run but having a left hamstring that went into severe spasm each time I moved my leg. Two cops came by quickly and were ready to bring in the medics. I told them to wait a minute to see if I could work it out. A few seconds after that an angel from heaven, in the form of a woman named Shelly, asked if she could help. She indicated she was a physical therapist and thought she could work this out. We went around the corner into her shady yard and she spent the next 10 or 15 minutes massaging out the spasm in my hamstring, stretching out both of my leg and keeping me from getting back on the course until I was good and ready. When she was done, I was able to get back on the course and to continue at a pace that some would consider a death shuffle, but was not really any slower than any of the folks around me.
The amazing crowds at Boston buoyed me and the other runners for those last five miles. I had duct taped my name to my chest, and was greeted with a nearly continuous chant of “Go John” as I ran it in. More than once, those around me asked loudly “Who the heck is John?” Those last five miles where the battle scene you might imagine, with a large percentage of the field broken down to a walk and people stopped along the way in several varieties of distress.
My 3:49 at the finish was nearly 40 minutes over what I had originally set as my goal. If you’d told me before the race that I would run that kind of time I would have assumed that I would be mightily disappointed. But as I sit here and write this, I’m feeling rather psyched that I was able to pull it together and tough out those last five miles. This was thanks largely to a generous woman named Shelly who was at the right place at the right time and whom I will never be able to thank properly.
For the last three years I have occupied myself during the winter months by training for a Spring Marathon. My 3:11 time at the Whidbey Island Marathon in Washington State last April was fast enough to qualify me of the 116th running of the Boston Marathon. The lure of Boston was too much for me, and I signed myself up. I’d run the race three times in the 80s and once in the 90s so I (mostly) knew what I was getting into. I had trained well for the race this year, putting in the miles and the speed work since December on the roads and on the dreaded tread mill.
Optimal marathon weather is 45 to 55 degrees and overcast. Anything hotter than that starts to impact performance and create general misery among the participants. With a week to go before the big race the forecast was looking rosy – high temps in Boston on Marathon Monday of 62 degrees. As the week wore on, however, the forecast deteriorated, with the final version promising a record high for the date of 88 degrees. We started getting e-mails from the race director encouraging us to re-consider competing. He remarked: “For the overwhelming majority of those who have entered to participate in the 2012 Boston Marathon, you should adopt the attitude that THIS IS NOT A RACE. It is an experience.” Approximately 5000 runners opted out based on the weather and the organizer’s promise that anyone that did not run could use their qualifying time for the 2013 version. The other 18,000 of us toed the line.
After 116 years, the organizers of Boston have things pretty well figured out. They start the race in three waves separated by 20 minutes. Each wave is organized into corrals of 1000 runners each that are arranged by your qualifying time. The result is a fairly orderly start, where you can be assured that those in front of you deserve to be there.
The Boston Marathon runs downhill for several miles from the start, and trying to keep a lid on your pace when the adrenaline is flowing, everyone around you is moving along, and you’re going down-hill is almost impossible. Through the first five miles or so I was clipping right along, and although I knew better, I was on that 3:10 pace that I’d been dreaming about; however, the heat started taking its toll, and I backed off my pace a bit. By 10 miles I was still in control and moving along, on track to beat a 3:20. Water stops were coming every mile, and I was slugging about 8 ounces Gatorade at every stop and putting another cup of water on my head.
By 13 miles the temperature had climbed into the mid-80s, and my brain, after consulting with my legs, decided that it would be OK to walk, just a little bit, at each water stop. By 16 miles, the once a mile walks were getting longer, but I was still moving along OK. At Wellesley College we passed throngs of beautiful and vocal young ladies, with several hundred of them holding signs that said: “Kiss me. . . I’m (fill in the blank)”. I decided this was an opportunity that I could not pass up, and I stopped to smooch a woman whose sign said “Kiss me, I’m from Japan”. I’d always wanted to kiss a woman from Japan, so I can report that I achieved exactly one goal at the Boston Marathon this year.
Energized by the rambunctious crowd and the motivational kissing, I and the rest of the crowd ran (mostly) up the dreaded hills of Newton, finishing with Heartbreak Hill between 20 and 21 miles. From the top of Heartbreak Hill it is downhill for five miles to the finish in Boston, starting with a somewhat steep downhill leading off of the summit. For weary legs that have just trudged up the big hill and are now stretching out the stride, there is a high potential for leg cramps – I had not experienced these before at Boston, but this year they came on with a vengeance, with one hamstring seizing so badly that I had to hang on to a street sign to avoid falling over.
I found myself in the awkward position of still having five miles to run but having a left hamstring that went into severe spasm each time I moved my leg. Two cops came by quickly and were ready to bring in the medics. I told them to wait a minute to see if I could work it out. A few seconds after that an angel from heaven, in the form of a woman named Shelly, asked if she could help. She indicated she was a physical therapist and thought she could work this out. We went around the corner into her shady yard and she spent the next 10 or 15 minutes massaging out the spasm in my hamstring, stretching out both of my leg and keeping me from getting back on the course until I was good and ready. When she was done, I was able to get back on the course and to continue at a pace that some would consider a death shuffle, but was not really any slower than any of the folks around me.
The amazing crowds at Boston buoyed me and the other runners for those last five miles. I had duct taped my name to my chest, and was greeted with a nearly continuous chant of “Go John” as I ran it in. More than once, those around me asked loudly “Who the heck is John?” Those last five miles where the battle scene you might imagine, with a large percentage of the field broken down to a walk and people stopped along the way in several varieties of distress.
My 3:49 at the finish was nearly 40 minutes over what I had originally set as my goal. If you’d told me before the race that I would run that kind of time I would have assumed that I would be mightily disappointed. But as I sit here and write this, I’m feeling rather psyched that I was able to pull it together and tough out those last five miles. This was thanks largely to a generous woman named Shelly who was at the right place at the right time and whom I will never be able to thank properly.
