I’m gonna say something super controversial right now: I really didn’t mind the weather at Boston this year (gasp!) The real challenge for me was all the training done in my first official New England winter. But wait, you may say, you’ve been back east for two winters now! I spent most of 2016-17 winter on a treadmill. Oof. I hid from what everyone agreed was a very mild winter.

Coming from Northern California and having not done a winter in ten years, soon as the temps got down under freezing I typically opted for an indoor run. And as the law of specificity would dictate, my first two road races last February and March were terrible. Gotta run outside if you’re gonna race outside.

So this winter I decided to just do it all outside- after all, there’s no such thing as shitty weather, just shitty clothes (and shitty preparation). I got me a pair of those special underwear- no, not the Mormon kind, the special “junk-covering patch” kind that keeps you oh so warm… uh, down… there. Some better socks, better gloves (even wore my ski gloves a on a few single digit runs actually), wore my ski goggles on those mornings we got hit with flurries or sleet and just tried to prepare well for crappy weather.

I grew to love it. Those runs in 17 degrees with the windchill pushing it down to a balmy 7; I wore them as a badge of honor. Let’s see if I can do a threshold workout in 10 degrees today!

So six weeks out from Boston the thought hit me- I bet we get absolute shit weather for the race this year. I mean, winter does not want to leave, why would it change for the biggest race of the year for me?

Luckily three weeks out I did an 18-miler at MP into 20+ mph headwinds with some light scattered drizzle and low-40s. Perfect, I’ll be ready for race day now. So no surprise ten days out (when almost all runners start obsessively checking the weather for their goal race, seriously don’t lie- you know you do it) when I saw what you all saw. Shitty weather!

My training also hit a slight snag twelve days out when I woke up with a locked sacroiliac joint; if any of you are low back pain sufferers, I feel you. I had to go get a few emergency chiropractic sessions to unlock that and restore full mobility, effectively forcing me to take three days off and miss my last workout ten days out (10 miles at MP). Not a great way to start a taper.

Anyway, I had to trust that my training was good. I had never run more miles during a build than I had before this race. I’d also never been this fit or this hungry to go out and really attack a race. The mental prep was the biggest thing though, just preparing myself to stay positive through every step of the race, even the days and nights leading up to it. My mantras I had developed through positive self-talk were “stick to you plan” (as far as nutrition and strategy goes) and “this is your FUCKING day”. Also, “dudebro”.

Dudebro has become my alter-ego through this block of training. Whenever I’d be doing a run or workout at MP or faster, the positive and encouraging self-talk would start: “just hold on, dude.”

Hold on, bro. Hold pace, dude.

C’mon, you got this dude. Bro. Little surge up this hill, bro.

Dude? Gotta hang, bro. Let’s go! Bro!

Eventually it became just “Dudebro!”

So when would I need dudebro at Boston? Basically from the minute I left my house. The initial plan was for my wife to drop me off in Hopkinton at like 9:45 am but I decided she’d be better off at home with our two-and-a-half year old. No sense trying to see me at Wellesley for like five seconds while managing an energetic little guy in a cold downpour, then trying to get downtown to pick me up- sounds like that would be way harder than what I was about to do. There will be more Bostons.

Luckily I live a little less than two hours from Boston, so my plan was to get to the Alewife T stop and get downtown by 7:30 am, then board a bus for Hopkinton and be at the Athlete’s Village by about 8:30. I was in Wave 2, Corral 1 this time around, so I had an extra 20 minutes from my run in 2016, which on race morning in those conditions equaled to what felt like about 45 extra seconds.

Except route 84 between Hartford and the Mass Pike was an absolute shit show- they got about two inches of snow/ice/freezing rain overnight so the driving was very slow, I slid three or four times and was like, “okay, just get to Boston in one piece today…” So this put me back about 30-45 minutes. I finally got to Cambridge at 7:45 am, and was downtown by 8:15- I met a really nice guy on the train from Ohio named Jim that also ran JFK50 last November.

I opted to walk from the Park Street stop across Boston Common to gear check and stepped out into a torrent. Feet were soaked within three minutes. Said to myself “this is not even in the top ten of things that will go wrong today…” Had to stay positive because I wasn’t going to stay dry.

Checked my gear, used the porta-potty, hopped on a bus, it was now 8:45, which basically put me in Hopkinton at 9:45, way too close to my start time. Had a fun ride out on the bus- I sat in the heater seat and jammed my feet under that so they’d dry, I also asked everyone around me if they’d like me to dry their gloves. So my feet and four pairs of gloves got semi-dry on the ride out. I drank a flat Coke and chatted with runners about goal times, other races we’ve run, you know- the usual thing that nervous runners do.

The Athlete’s Village looked like a refugee camp- the area under the tents was ankle-deep mud, so I stayed on concrete. It hurt to look at. I basically huddled into the masses as we did the slow walk towards the corral entrance. I lubed up profusely, Desitin’d my b-hole like it was my job. No chafing today. Just not gonna allow it to even take root. Dropped my sweatpants at the donation bins, put my gloves on, powered up my watch and took a little jog down to the corrals.

Of course soon as I get in the corral I have to pee. I stood there and tried my hardest to pee on myself (zero fucks given at this point, was already completely soaked and starting to shiver slightly) but was way too keyed up. Or cold. Or both. Just repeating over and over in my head “this is your day… stick to your plan…” The rain wasn’t that big a deal, to be honest it was the wind. The ever-present wind.

Gun goes off, we go off, and I’m running the Boston Marathon. I’M RUNNING THE BOSTON MARATHON! Okay, relax, dude- you did this before.

Take it easy, nothing dumb right now. My plan was to start off with two 7-minute miles then work my way down to 6:50 then settle into 6:45 pace by mile four. I went out way too hard first time here and was cooked by the Newton Hills. Not trying to do that again. Luckily I was totally boxed in and looked down after about a half mile and was running about 7:30 pace, and was able to finally pee (that’s the fastest I think I can run while pissing myself). Sorry if any of my pee-pee got on anyone.

First three miles: 7:25, 7:01, 6:45. Was feeling pretty good now, I ripped off my long sleeve half-shirt like Hulk Hogan and discarded it. My arms felt warm from the trapped heat, almost felt humid in there. Every time I started to throw a little surge in from adrenaline I reigned it in, said “not now” and “slow down”. Mile four was 6:47, okay this is it. Stay right here…

And I have to pee again. I stopped at this long row of porta-potties on that little hill on the way out of Ashland. This one would take over a minute, it just kept coming and coming. 8:33 for that mile. It was at this moment I abandoned trying to run sub-3 and said to myself that I just wanted to re-qualify for next year. Basically needed a 3:11 or better, and I knew it was going to be hard to do that. Running into a 25-30 mph headwind was wasting so much energy.

Somewhere in the Greater Boston area

Then a 6:44, 6:45 and a 6:52; threshold pace for me is about these miles, but why does it feel like 10k pace? I’m going to crash and burn, hard. Better slow down. Better try to go through the half around 1:33 or so. Next four miles: two 6:59’s and a 7:04 and a 6:55 into Wellesley before stopping to pee again (WTF?)

Smile!

I split the first half in 1:34:19, probably losing almost two minutes to pee breaks. It’s gotta be that cold-induced diuresis again. My body just has to pee a ton when I’m cold. Oh well, can’t do anything about that now (…or ever? Any doctors out there wanna chime in on this? I start taking Flomax or something?)

Working…

Besides for my thighs and hands being a little cold I felt great- was taking 100-120 calories every 3.5 miles (about every 25 minutes) and was drinking 2-3 ozs of water at every other mile. That’s 300-360 every 75 minutes (my plan was to eat about 250-300 cals/hr), and I took either a gel or three Shot Bloks at 3.5, 7, 10.5 and 14 and washed it down with two cups (4-6 ozs) of Gatorade.

My screen name on PT is “das antelopen” which is German for “the antelope”, so yeah, that’s me.

I got a huge boost from my buddy Robb at mile 14, he was here with his family from nearby Weymouth- even made us PT Runners a sign!

I knew I’d need more energy for the hills coming up so I decided to take another gel and two cups of Gatorade at 17, just after the first Newton hill before the Firehouse. I noticed at this point I was passing a ton of people- folks were already wearing emergency blankets and walking the hills. Uh oh. I better slow down- I had just run the last three miles at 6:56, 7:05 and 6:52. Maybe I should try to keep it right at 7 and the hills at 7:30- there’s still a long way to go.

My form still looks solid

It felt like the second Newton hill was the steepest but also the shortest; I had done a ton of hills in my training so honestly, the hills didn’t feel that hard today. I would again pass what felt like 500 runners here- this is the hill that starts at the Firehouse. I noticed I was yelling out loud a lot here, mostly to myself but it may have helped and/or annoyed other runners. “PUMP YOUR ARMS!” and “C’MON DUDE!” “YOU GOT THIS!” and such.

A 7:26 mile and then a 7:28 had me feeling good- this is where my race died in ’16, just tried to hammer these hills and couldn’t. Felt like the tank still had a lot in it, and of course I stop to pee again at 30km. This better be the last time, if it wasn’t it had to wait, I had literally no more seconds to give away. I knew I was gonna be close to 3:11.

Dude? Bro!

After a quick 30-second stop and splitting a 7:56 mile, I really hammered the third Newton hill and tried to reign it in for Heartbreak. This was where I was gonna spend a little bit and then try to coast down, there’s a nice three mile downhill after cresting Heartbreak and this was where I planned on taking a lot out. I felt really good just churning up Heartbreak, passing maybe 1,000 runners here- no lie. People were walking. People wearing red bibs.

I stopped taking perverse joy in passing these folks and started feeling sorry for them, at first it was like, “shoulda trained harder” which turned into “damn, this is serious…” People had blue lips and were shivering uncontrollably. I was surprised that there were only 1202 DNFs, that means most of these folks persevered to the finish. Mad props to the Medical Staff- they treated something like 2500+ people.

Top of Heartbreak, Boston College, people partying hard, time to hammer. I screamed “TIME TO EMPTY THE TANK FOLKS! WHO’S COMING WITH ME?” to which no one replied. Maybe they all had survivors guilt. It felt good to run hard down the backside of this hill, a nice 6:46 mile that felt faster but now with no more hills to block the wind it was like a full force gale here. That 6:46 into that wind (let’s say 25 mph) equates to about a 6:10 pace. Here’s an article on wind-aided as well as wind-impeded running: Running in Windy Conditions

The next few miles were directly into the wind- once you turn onto Beacon Street it was right there in all of its glory. I took another gel at mile 20 and my last with 5k to go. I would split a 7:03, a 7:18 and 7:26 as the Citgo sign comes into view. These miles were hard, and the “dudebro” was summoned. At Mile 23 the sky opened up with some of the biggest rain drops of the day, they felt like they were the size of silver dollars.

Dude! Bro! C’mon dudebro, one time! One time!!!

Then the “One Mile to Go” marker, then that dip under the Mass Pike, fading, starting to really enter bonk mode here. Just grinding and giving it everything. a 7:35 mile, fuck! Legs, failing, just… Dying…

Then up the other side, see that crowd? HEAR THAT CROWD? And here comes the kick, I’m finding I have legs here; the turn onto Hereford, up that little rise, passing hundreds of runners, voices, screaming, cheering, USA USA USA, holy shit- do I have legs now!

And I’m going to cry. Don’t cry, dudebro, you’re on camera somewhere. The emotion is just coming up- just let it all out, dude. Just let it rip bro.

SHOW YOU MY O FACE

Sprinting here, feels like sub-5 pace here (actually was) just watching the clock from a few blocks now, 3:10:00..01…02…03

Battle cry?

C’mon dude, hammer. HAMMER, BRO!

OMG dudebro we did it!

3:10:40. I can stop running now. I started to walk. Now I could feel the cold. I’m cold, dude. Bro, you can’t lift your arms over your head to celebrate.

Trying to lift my arms and… frozen at the shoulders.

Let’s get warm! I went right to gear check to get my bag, of course stopping for the medal, bag of food, water and emergency blanket. That took forever, we were all teeth chattering and cold waiting for our bags as they rifled through the bins to find our bibs. I went to wait in line for the changing room but said “F this” and went to a porta-potty, putting the seat down and using the inside of my emergency blanket to get dry and changed on top of. Literally warmed up instantly once I was dressed.

Then I went home. What a day.

Strava data

Some take-aways from Boston:

I feel like anybody that ran 3:12 or faster at Boston this year could probably equate that to a sub-3 in those unfavorable conditions.

My buddy Shan sent me this little item:

I like the little handwritten footnote- ideal for me is like 47 degrees.

That works out to a 2:57:19 for a 3:10:40, and the winning times are just about in line with this above number, too. 2:15 to 2:06 (that’s around the usual Boston men’s time in “normal” temperature conditions) and a 2:39 to 2:28 for the women.

For the wind calculations, I don’t know what the average headwind was but it was rarely not blowing directly into us- that article I linked above said an equal headwind for your pace would slow you down about 12 seconds per mile, so a 6:45 pace is 8.8 mph and an 8.8 mph headwind would effectively slow you down to a 6:57 pace… But 8.8 mph was probably on the low side for the day, even if it was at 15-20 mph for the average that slowed everyone down an additional maybe 20-30 seconds per mile? Do I have that right?

Anyway, the conditions dictated the pace and I had to go with what I had. Take what the day gives you and do what you do. That’s all any of us could do. Kudos to everyone that lined up to start; no harm in DNFing this one- you’re still rad in my book.

I was also super happy that I was able to run a slight positive split- 1:34:19 to 1:36:21, only losing 2:02 for the second half. It felt like a negative split, with all the hills coming in the second half, but again- was psyched that I was able to have a strong finish. I passed 4,804 runners to “beat my bib” and finish in 3458th place.

I lost 3:11 to stoppages (three pisses!) and I gotta get better there- for all my road marathons I either never stopped to pee or stopped exactly once.

Some positives were my stomach was pretty good, had some early mile flatulence going on but that was gone pretty quick (sorry to anyone running behind me for that stretch in Ashland, my bad…) I was really good at taking water every other mile, either one or two cups and stayed right on target with gels/Bloks/Gatorade.

And hopefully I re-qualified for next year, I’m 4:20 under the standard so that should be good enough- unless the legend of Boston attracts another record number of applicants for 2019…

I guess we’ll see.