Boston

I realized that I never posted about running the Boston Marathon, which is kind of a huge oversight because I had been posting about it for so long. So here goes. It was an incredible weekend! I think that a lot of what made it so special was that I got to share a lot of it with my family who came along to cheer me along during the run. Chris and Kate and my parents and two sisters and brother in-law and Chris' parents were all there. My family had never been to Boston before so we took them to do all the touristy things which was so much fun. We went to Lexington and Concord and did the Freedom Trail and took them to the North Side to get cannoli from Mike's Pastry Shop and saw a game at Fenway. They also came with Mary and me when we went to the Marathon Expo to pick up our packets and numbers. It was so fun to be a part of the group of people who had all worked for the same thing I had. We walked around with our Marathon gear and noticed all the other people in the city who were doing the same thing and I felt a sense of kinship with them. The actual marathon was an experience. Mary and I got up early to catch the bus out to the Athletes Village where the runners waited until it was their turn to line up and start running. When it was our turn, we joined a huge group of people and walked for about a mile from the village to the start line, and there were already a ton of spectators lined up cheering us on, before we had even started running. The actual course was a little more challenging than the one I had used to qualify, so we ran a bit slower and Mary slowed down around mile 15 and told me to leave her, so I ran the last 11 miles by myself, but it was still great to just run along that historic course, to see all the people who came out to cheer on the runners, even if they didn't have anyone in particular to cheer on. A lot of the athletes put their name on their shirts so that strangers can cheer for them. Mary and I didn't do that, but people still found a way to cheer for us, calling us the pink ladies or calling out the last few digits of my number. And I got to see my family twice along the course. I stopped to kiss my daughter and it energized me to see them. And there was no greater feeling than crossing the finish line. I was pretty exhausted after that run, more so than many of the other marathons I had run, so it felt really good to stop, to collect my medal and go to find my family. And even after the race, I had that exhilarating feeling that I had done something great. My family wanted me to wear my medal around, which many of the runners do. I don't like to draw attention to myself that way, but I did it at the airport because they were letting people who had finished the race skip to the front of the security line and not wait and also board the plane first. That was a nice little perk. I may never run that race again, so I'm so happy that I was able to do it at least once, to have that experience.