Boston Marathon, Patriot's Day

Our Patriot's Day started early, and we made our way over to Hopkinton State Park to drop off Alan. The park is so convenient to drop off runners for the marathon, I love it.  No downtown parking hassles, and we got to pass by a row of buses on the expressway who were transporting runners in from downtown.  Drop off was at 7:30 and it was a little chilly, but a very pretty sunny morning.

Good luck Alan!!

 

 

After drop off, we went to the half way point of the race, Wellesley.  We set up camp along the curb and went back to the car for a few hours of magazine reading (me) and DS playing (kids).  Around 11am we went out to the street to cheer on the wheelchair participants and elite runners.  I got to see Kara Goucher, although she was at the back of the elite pack at that time.

Finally, Alan made his way past.  He was looking good!

Since I was in charge of the DSLR camera, Zack got to be the cheering section (loud cowbells and yelling) and Sydney ran the iPhone so we could get some video.  Here it is....

 

We stayed around for a little while longer and saw our other friend Berenice go by.  Go B, Go!!! (she is in the pink visor)

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time to make our way down to the finish line.  The subway was crazy packed!!  We had to wait almost an hour to get on the subway train.  Every train that stopped was overfilled, but finally I just said "come on kids, we are getting on this one!!!" and we squished on it.  It was terribly tight fitting, but we made it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan finished in 3:09:19.  That's a pace of 7:13!!  That is smoking fast.  That is also his best marathon yet. Woohoo!!  He was one happy man indeed.  And the best part, he was not even hobbling *too* much, he could walk!

 

By the time we finally made it to the finish area, it was around 2:30 and we hadn't even eaten lunch yet, so the first thing on the agenda was to get some food.  We decided to go eat in Chinatown. 

As we were walking that direction, we were passed by several emergency vehicles.  First a police car.  Then an ambulance, and then a fire truck.  We had to plug our ears because the siren noise was so loud as it passed us.  That couldn't be good.  What could it be?  Someone has had a heart attack at the finish line??

 

 

 

And that's when we got the text.. as we were walking out of the family meeting area.. "Explosions at the finish line?? WTF?"  Hmmm, that was very odd indeed.  At first we thought maybe it was a celebration cannon that had gone off, or maybe something else had misfired. 

We got to Chinatown and started checking out the news and seeing what had really happened.  We made many texts, and phone calls letting everyone know we were OK.  In some cases, this was the first time our friends/family had even heard about what was going on.

After a few tries we finally found a good Chinese restaurant (one that didn't have fish heads or duck feet) and relaxed for a little bit, all while keeping up on the news.  We learned that two bombs went off, at 4:09:44 on the race clock and another around 20 seconds later.  3 people were dead, and hundreds of people were injured.  Many needed amputations.

 

 

After lunch we started walking around, but of course we got a little lost and at one point we passed a hospital.  There was a SWAT team there, and lots of people, who were probably trying to find loved ones, and of course news crews.  The subway was shut down so there was nothing left for us to do but just go inside and wait.



 

We went to the Sweetwater Tavern, where we were supposed to meet some friends, but we only got to see 2 people since the city was on lock-down and everyone was supposed to stay inside.  Around 7:30pm the subway reopened, and we got out of that place!  The kids did really well considering they had seen the media coverage of the bombing at the bar.  It was pretty much impossible for them not to see the video, which played on repeat all night long.  Luckily they did not really understand it had happened so close to us, and mostly that someone was trying to kill people.

 

When we got back to our hotel and the kids were asleep, we finally got to watch the news and see the horrific details of what had happened.  Most of our runner friends had finished before bomb at 4:09, but a few did not and were stopped mid-race.  My heart goes out to all of the families there have suffered, both physically and mentally from this event.  We will be back again... you have not stopped us!!

 

 

 

Boston Marathon, day 2

Today is Sunday, so it's our "tourist" day.  But before we go into downtown Boston, the kids ran a race on Heartbreak Hill.  Heartbreak Hill is the last of a series of races in the Boston Marathon in Newton MA.  What makes this hill so hard during the race is that it comes at around the 21 mile mark and it is a gradual incline for a half a mile.  Thus, the race is half a mile up the hill, and back down.  They staged this race so each birth year and sex was a group.  So here is Zachary lined up with the other boys from 2005.

When he got done running he said it was "hard"!  His time for the mile was 8:55.

Sydney is right in the middle, pink shirt and striped skirt/leggings.

She looked strong at the finish!  Her time for the mile was 8:21.  Great job by both of the kids.

We hopped on the T and headed to downtown.  Our first stop before the expo was the finish line.  We got some good pictures of the finish area.

At the expo we ran into a couple of friends and all discussed the topic du jour - shorts or capris? tanks or t-shirts? what is your pacing strategy?....

Dean Karnazes was at the expo.  That was pretty exciting to see a running "celebrity"!  In retrospect I should have gotten MY picture taken with him.  The kids got a poster signed.

After the expo we headed to the pre-race carb loading dinner that they put on for the racers.  This was a pretty good deal - a free meal for us!  It was a delicious meal of pasta, sausage, salad, Sam Adams 26.2 beer, and a huge goody bag of dessert treats.  We will definitely do this again.

After another long day in the city, we headed back home and rested.  Alan got read for the race and realized he left his pace band someplace (at home maybe??) and we needed to make a new one.  Good thing we had all the accessories to make a new one.