JW Run Blog 10: Grateful

 Grateful

Boston Marathon 2016

Getting into Boston in 2016 involved some drama. I had run 3:27:20 at Bay State against a qualifying time of 3:30:00. But the BAA had started using cut-off times in 2012. Would my margin of 2:40 be enough? 

On my Boston application, I made a bone-headed move. The application asks for your qualifying time. I went back to the official results from Bay State Marathon 2014 and entered the time they had listed for me. But as it turned out, I entered the gun time instead of the chip time. (There was a few seconds difference between the time the starting gun went off and when I actually crossed the starting line mat.) So when the BAA announced the cut-off time of 2:28, I was distraught. I hadn’t made the cut! I had missed out by just a few seconds.

But then I received an email from the BAA that I had indeed been accepted. Thankfully they had noticed my error, and they used the correct time in evaluating my application. I didn’t realize what had happened until my friend Stacey Miceli pointed out what I had done. So I had indeed made it into the race--by a 12-second margin. 

With this dramatic entry story, I imbued the race with special meaning. My training, however, took a wrong turn in mid-February. My lower back was sore and I couldn’t run without limping. So I got on the exercise bike to keep myself in aerobic shape. Nichole McCann--unofficial masseuse for GNRC--told me I was experiencing back spasms. I tried to run, but my body would have none of it. So I kept biking and threw in elliptical workouts when that felt okay. On weekends I tried to replicate the aerobic effort of a long run while on the stationary bike at LA Fitness. I did quite a few “long runs” on the bike, working for hours in the spin room with PowerGels and water bottles. Sometimes I would be there alone, listening to my iPod “biking mix”; other times I’d be in a spin class, using the collective power of the group to get me through. The pool of sweat that built up around my stationary bike was a moat that kept others away from me. 

On March 21, I went to a chiropractor who Mel C. recommended. John Carroll went to work on me, knowing that I wanted to run Boston in mid-April. He bent me into pretzels, used heat and electrical stimulation, and told me to stretch in between sessions. After two weeks of him working on me, I was able to start running. I worked my way up to a long run of 7.4 miles on April 9 before the marathon.  

How to game-plan for the Boston Marathon with the training I had managed to do? I threw my situation out to friends on Facebook and got some good advice. The gist of it was, “You can do it, you’ve run marathons. You’re in good aerobic shape. Just take it slow.” So I planned to go out at 9:15 pace and see if I could just hang onto that. And I also planned to let the crowds help me as much as possible. If people were willing to help me, I would accept their help. So when the gun went off at the start, I let all of the runners around me stream by. Within a few miles, I was running practically alone through Ashland, high-fiving little kids and anyone else who would meet my eye. This was fun, actually. The next wave of runners caught up to me and started streaming by. I maintained my pace and drew support from the crowds. They cheered, I soaked up their energy. This continued through Wellesley and into Newton, and I chugged my way up the hills, maintaining the 9:15 pace. I remember drawing a big surge of energy from the college students at BC. The smell of beer was pervasive, and they spotted me from a distance and bellowed “FERNAN-DOOO!!” I high fived them all. After mile 20 I was able to hold that pace and continue to draw energy from the crowd, finishing at 4:04:53. 

This was my “grateful marathon.” I was grateful to the crowds, to Fernando, to my friends, to John Carroll, and for being out there on the course on a wonderful spring day. I needed a lot of help that day, and people helped me. And I accepted the help, which is not something I am good at.