Boston Marathon 2011 Race Recap

by SkinnyRunner on April 18, 2011

This morning at 7am I walked outside the hotel and got in the 45 minute bus line. Once on the bus, I talked to my seatmate for about half of the 70 minute drive to the start in Hopkinton.

The athletes village was huge and a little disorganized in my opinion, but I had an hour to wait until my 10:20 start so I sat and read my magazine. It was a little chilly but not too bad. I had a throwaway sweater and pants on which helped.

The time went by pretty quickly and pretty soon it was time for Wave 2 Corral 1 to start. Pretty much from the start I felt tired, but the first 10 miles were really boring. I think I was more mentally bored than anything. It was like, We have to do this again?!

The course starts out downhill, but I made myself start very conservatively since my legs weren’t fresh and there’d be hills later on. Passed the 5k in 25:03. It wasn’t until about mile 10 when I got out of my “bored out of my shorts” mindset.

At mile 8 I ate my first 4 cinnamon bears. This race should be called Candyston because it seems like all I did was eat sugar. I love marathons. The crowds really made this race fun; I don’t think the course is anything particularly amazing, but the cheering sections were awesome.

Passed the 15k mark in 1:14:40 and was still mentally in a tiny funk, but the farther we went, the more interesting the course got, the more spectators there were, the more fun it was.

Around mile 12.4 we ran by all the famous Wellesley girls who screamed like madmen. They were soooo loud but it was fun and got me pumped up. No, I didn’t kiss any of them. (All their signs say “Kiss me!”)

Hit the halfway mark around 1:45 and ate another 4 cinnamon bears. Finally started getting into it and enjoying myself. I was high five’ing kids, ate 2 blue popsicles handed to me and tried to just soak in it and enjoy it. My legs were tired but not too terribly bad and the farther I went, the better I felt.

I took a Powerbar gel at mile 18 and met Flyrunner who was rocking hard. We ran for awhile together which was nice because it pumped me up and gave me some energy. Around mile 19 we hit the hills and the infamous Heartbreak Hill at 20. It was a little long but not that bad. I think it’s hyped up more than it’s worth. Kinda like SR.

I ate a big ‘ol licorice rope that someone handed me (see how much candy I ate?!) and after cresting Heartbreak, decided to pick it up since I only had a few more miles to go. I took one more gel at mile 22 and met the supermodel looking EMZ who I’m pretty sure ran like 700 miles…. last week.

Pushed hard to the finish…. I finished in 3:26:32, 7:53 pace, 6597th overall. It’s like it took me 10-12 miles to mentally get into the race and then my legs took over and did their thunder thighs thing.

Tagged as: boston, race recap

Skinny Runner

{ 111 comments… read them below or add one }

Skye April 18, 2011 at 2:24 pm

I stalked your bib # today and you did awesome. Congrats. You are my inspiration to run my half marathon in June. Hey, if you can run 2 marathons in a weekend I can stop complaining and do my training runs.

Boston Marathon 2011 Race Recap

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