What a weekend! I didn't even run the marathon and I'm exhausted.
I kicked off marathon weekend on Saturday with a trip to the Boston Marathon expo to pick up
lots and lots of free samples my 5K race packet.
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| Very artistic photo of this year's BAA 5K technical t |
The trip to the expo became quite an adventure when we showed up at Hynes (having walked the 2+ miles to get there) only to discover that this year's convention was actually being held 2.5 miles away at Seaport World Trade Center. Fortunately it was a beautiful day, and I had some good company, so the walk wasn't too bad. Especially when we stumbled upon the official kids relay race.
As always, I had a blast wandering around the expo picking up free samples, and even restrained myself in the shopping department -- only bought a pair of running sunglasses to replace the pair I lost in the Charles during crew practice last week.
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| It's not possible to take a new sunglasses photo without making a funny face. I tried. |
After the expo adventure and a long walk with Oso, I was pretty exhausted. So I felt totally justified spending the rest of the day folding laundry and watching tv to rest up for Sunday's 5K. My choice of Domino's for dinner for the first time in over a month (it's sad, but for me is a very long time without Domino's) did, however, come back to bite me the next morning.
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| Random adorable Oso photo |
At some point this spring I had plans to do a bunch of speed work to get in shape to PR (currently 27:40) this 5K. Turns out, that's not a super realistic goal less than a month after your spring marathon when you've also decided to add rowing and cycling to your workout rotation. So I made a last minute goal revision on the T ride to the start.
The start of the race was fairly chaotic. The start corral was packed too tight to move, and there only appeared to be seeding markers for 5, 6, and 7 minute pace, and even those were hard to see. So the first mile was a bit of a slog through traffic, but apparently that first split wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. For some reason I clearly remember seeing 9:45 on my watch as I passed the 1st mile marker ...
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| Do I spy possible negative splits?! |
I ended up with an official finish time of 29:02. So didn't quite meet my revised goal, but I'm fairly satisfied with my race, all things considered. Especially because after it was over I got to go out to an awesome brunch at
Masa with one of my Reach the Beach girls and a few of her friends.
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| Santa Fe Style Eggs Benedict + Chorizo. Yum. |
After the race, I took Oso for another long walk, and then met up with a few friends who were in town for the marathon on Monday. After a glass of wine, an absolutely amazing Brussels sprouts pizza, and some salted caramel pinkberry, I spent the rest of the evening figuring out my spectating plan and procuring some sponges and sweatbands to soak in ice cold water and have on hand for my friends running in the ridiculous heat.
Monday morning, I watched the early race coverage on tv and then headed out for the 3 mile walk to BC segment of the course, just after mile 22. I definitely underestimated how much a small cooler of ice weighs, but I still made it to my designated spot along the course just after receiving a 30K update for the first of my friends. I set myself up in a good viewing spot, and then proceeded to somehow miss ALL THREE of my friends as they came by #cheersquadfail. Fortunately the people standing next to me did manage to flag down their loved ones, who very much appreciated the cold sponges.
After hanging out around mile 22 for about two hours, I decided to walk along the race course for a few miles on my way to REI (where I had to go to dispute a double charge on my shiny new road bike, which I'll write about soon). I think the walk was actually my favorite part of my whole day of spectating -- I finally got to see my people, the back of the packers jogging/walking/stumbling their way to a 5+ hour finish. A whole bunch of them had names on their shirts, which made cheering a lot easier and more fun. And they pretty much mobbed me when I set up for a few minutes to get rid of my remaining sponges, sweatbands, and ice. Seemed like a mutually beneficial arrangement at that point, since I was much, much happier once I was carrying an empty cooler!
By the time I finally made it home, I had been out for six hours and walked more than 8 miles. I was completely exhausted and dehydrated, so I really don't know how the runners did it! My friends absolutely crushed it, running very strong races in incredibly difficult conditions. Which of course required dragging my exhausted self out for beers and burgers, a perfect way to wrap up an awesome marathon weekend.
The start of the race was fairly chaotic. The start corral was packed too tight to move, and there only appeared to be seeding markers for 5, 6, and 7 minute pace, and even those were hard to see. So the first mile was a bit of a slog through traffic, but apparently that first split wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. For some reason I clearly remember seeing 9:45 on my watch as I passed the 1st mile marker ...
