Boston Marathon 2010

WOW, Boston!
To think of how long I?ve been working toward this goal. The miles. The hours. The pain and injuries. All for Boston.
Saturday at the expo was madness. I?ve never seen anything like it. Bought way too much, and tried not to lose my mind while being crushed in the crowds. Oddly, I ran into Jeff and Kim Walsh. It?s a small world.
Sunday, back to Boston (our hotel was 40 miles out of town), brunch at Steve?s Place (a block from Boylston Street on Hereford. One more quick run through the expo to get another souvenir and some time with former champions, like Amby Burfoot and Dick Beardsley. No less than twice in these two days was I nearly overcome with emotion. WOW!
On the trip back to our motel, we made another detour to Hopkinton to verify shuttle drop location (we had to drive past Hopkinton to get to Boston anyway) and on to Bertucci?s for dinner. What a great restaurant. The food was great and the service was excellent, oh, and it was quite reasonably priced.

Race morning:
After a fitful sleep we woke at 6:00, all my gear was laid out from the night before, and I quickly dressed, opened the door to head for the car only to see?sun. Sun? I hadn?t see the sun since Friday. It was supposed to rain. I panicked. I quickly grabbed a pair of shorts, and headed to the car. The drive was far too short, and before I knew it, we were turning into Hopkinton State Park (the drop off), the sun was still shining, and I was still ready for the rain that would never come. I dropped trou in the car and quickly replaced my tights and thermal underwear with racing shorts. I played the odds and kept my long sleeve shirt. After some pictures at the lake, I boarded to shuttle to athlete?s village.
WOW! 27,000 people in one place is overwhelming to me. I grabbed a coffee and made conversation with a teacher from Utica, New York. Together we grabbed a chunk of grass near a pair of guys from Wisconsin and chatted away the next 2 hours. Before I knew it we were being directed to the baggage buses. Go time was almost here.
In the starting corrall I made small talk with some people around me. I met a guy from Mississauga running Boston for the first time, and a woman who was at the 1996 U.S. Olympic marathon trials (cool eh?). The guy standing immediately to my left asked, ?Did you say you were from Belleville?? after telling him I had, he stuck his hand out and said, ?I?m Lou Scanlan, I was wondering who this Mike Kelly from Belleville was.?
Small world.
Unlike my other marathon reports, I can?t tell you what I felt from mile to mile, other than overwhelmed. The first 5k didn?t seem especially fast to me, I didn?t really think the first half was particularly quick either (although both were), but at mile 16 (where the hills start) I knew this was going to be a rough day. The next 10 miles were as much a blur of human bodies running in the same direction as me, as it was voices screaming ?GO CANADA?, or, ?YOU CAN DO IT? or a hundred other things. I remember seeing the Quick Mart somewhere and thinking we were very close to Springfield. I wondered if Apu would be working. I remember seeing a TD Bank with an RBC Wealth Management sign on it. I remembered the girls from Wellsley, wondered if the stories about the ?show? would be true, and how quickly I had run past them all. I also remember being able to hear them scream long past the point were I could see them. I remember the suffering of the hills, and my inability to dig deeper and run faster to salvage any hope of a good time, I just couldn?t block out the race to force anything to happen. I remember thinking that Heartbreak hill was nothing as I accelerated past my fellow runners on the way up, and nearly crying because my quads and blistered feet hurt so badly on the way down. I remember the grizzled old ex-Ranger telling me we were almost there as the two of us walked through the aid station at mile 21 and me thinking, ?okay, 5 miles, this isn?t even a warm up,? and the crowd erupting as 2 army grunts marched by with their packs, and my momentum being dashed. I remember running backward down the next hill because my legs felt like wood that was being hammered by my pounding feet, and someone asking if I?d run the whole way like that. I remember thinking, ?right on Hereford, left on Boylston and you?re home, where?s Hereford??
I remember seeing Jeff Walsh as he shouted something about some Mike Kelly guy and how awesome he is (or something like that LOL.)
What a small world we live in.
Finally, I remember turning right on Hereford and thinking, ?this is it, just left onto Boylston, wait ?til the last traffic light and sprint.? I had difficulty holding back the tears of joy I felt from completing this 6 year quest. I had just run the 114th Boston Marathon.
Next year I?ll bring a bigger shovel.

Mike