Boston
Marathon
April
18, 2016
4:24:50 21,195/26,639 overall 229/547
Age Group
This
Boston Marathon (my 18th Boston, most of any qualifier in the Fresno
area) was dedicated to my own dear cat, Boston, who was named after the
marathon and who died in January. Also,
my uncle Howard Duncan passed away at the age of 94 on Friday morning April 15th
so I ran the race in his honor.
I
went to the expo onFriday where I immediately ran into J.K. and shared the
moment of silence at 4:39 in memory of the victims of the Boston bombing 3
years ago. I saw Kathrine Switzer who was the first female entrant to run
Boston. I’ve met her a few other times including arranging for her to come to
Fresno to speak at TC Marathon and FSU so she remembered me and was nice enough
to sign my bib in honor of Uncle Howie. I also got to talk to Bart Yasso whom
I’ve met at various marathons from Vermont to Saskatchewan.
Jodi
texted to tell me how much she’d owe me if I got a picture with Meb so I took
ones with some cutouts and posters that were all over the expo and sent them to
her. But the secret was that I had talked to the folks at his booth about this
and they gave me a ticket to go to the head of the line and indeed talk to Meb
and get his picture. (See all these and other things I mention at the
Shutterfly link.)
After
leaving the expo, I went by the finish line and through the Boston Common on
the way to Cheers where I had a
wonderful dinner and fun time seeing the Cheers
gang. I went down Newbery Street, the famous shopping street in Boston and then
headed back to Dayville, CT where I stayed once again with my cousins, John and
Linda Duncan. We visited a cool waterfall and enjoyed some great sunsets and
went together to church in Marlborough on Sunday. They both were great chauffeurs
to and from the marathon and Linda made sure I had great pre and post race
meals!
For
the first time in 36 years of running I had been experiencing a running injury
that noticeably affected my running. I was also going to do the Big Sur
Marathon in six days so my plan was to run 2 miles and walk 2 minutes through
most of the race. I stuck to my plan and didn’t have a fast finish time, but
was a lot less sore than usual after Boston or other marathons. I did run a
relaxed race and even took time to take a few pictures along the way. It was a
fairly warm day with temps in the mid 60s and bright sun so not a day for fast
times anyway. I saw one lady with yellow and blue tutu and told her about those
Boston colors being the theme colors for Jodi’s and my wedding and I avoided
the temptations of the girls of Wellsley College, even the one who had a sign
that said, “Kiss me; I’m from California”! I did have a nasty blood blister on
my toe so skip picture #129 if you don’t want to see itJ
This was Marathon #147; 21 states on 2d go round; 9 Canadian provinces.
Next up: Big Sur on April 18 and 24, 2016. Pictures at: https://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=1JcNWbVkxZ2o
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