The 2012 Boston Marathon: The Water Stop Tour

The latest edition of the Boston Marathon, the 13th I've done, is now the most memorable one for me.  Various sources said the temperature reached 87 to 89 degrees, which was a few degrees above the temperature in the 2004 marathon.  But the big difference was the humidity.  In 2004 the air was very dry with a westerly wind at our backs.  This year the morning dew point was 58, indicating more moisture in the air, even though the breezes in the upper eighties evaporated water applied to the skin in a few minutes. Below is the account I sent to my running club, along with added details about the places we went and the people we met.

How many times have I watched the weather forecast for a particular race change from a moderate, favorable one to something that's going to present a challenge?  For marathons, it seems in about one out of three cases, the forecast has gone awry.  Sometimes it becomes more cold and blustery.  Sometimes it's rain. And sometimes it's heat.  Usually when a trend starts to go in one direction six days out from the event, it just continues to get worse as race day approaches.

And so it was with the 2012 Boston Marathon.  A forecast in the low 70s a week out became a prediction of high 80s and no cloud cover with two days to go.  By Saturday the Boston Athletic Association had decided to let registrants opt out if they picked up their number, but didn't start.  About 400 took advantage of that.  But the other part of the decision was to extend the time in which a runner could be officially scored to seven hours from six. (In actuality, it appears everyone who finished was scored, even over eight hours.)  The irony of this change was that club member Mark Lozier had been contacting BAA about extending the hours or an early start several times in the weeks leading up to the race, but kept being denied.  But the weather changed all that.

Mark's dilemma:  Back up to last summer.  Mark had stumbled going down steps at home and injured his right knee.  He got the meniscus operated on in August and 10% was removed.  Having qualified at Mohawk Hudson Valley in October 2010 (where I also got a BQ), Mark registered for the marathon in September.  But as he tried to run again, he was experiencing pain.  Visits to the doctor showed the knee had developed some arthritis at the point of the surgery.  He took a series of fluid injections.  But the knee never came around.  By early this year, he determined that he'd begin  walking and shortened a 12 week program to eight.  The last month he covered 200 miles and got in two 20 milers.  He had decided to WALK the Boston Marathon.  He figured at his walking pace it would take about 6 hours and 40 minutes and thus the angst when BAA denied him, but relief when it decided the field could have an extra hour.

Meanwhile, I figured this race was going to be similar to 2004 when the temperature reached 86.  Then I told myself it was like another long run at the beach and I ran about a minute a mile slower than I was capable of on a good day.  So this time, I figured I could do about 4:45, a time I did in June of 2010 at a warm marathon.  But my calculations were off.  The humidity was higher than in 2004 and in mid-April there was no opportunity to be  acclimated to the heat as I was by June of 2010.

But before the account of the actual run, I'm retelling the events leading up to it:

In July 2010, Mark Lozier and I went up to Massachusetts to the Run the Around the Lake Marathon on what turned out to be a dry evening.  Mark grew up in Lynn. which is northeast of Boston on Nahunt Bay and Lynn Harbor. His sister Elaine and brother-in-law Ed live in the next town over, Swampscott.  They had graciously put us up then and were willing to do the same for this version of the Boston Marathon.  Mark has stayed there a number of times and I just became an extra person.

On Thursday afternoon we left for Massachusetts and got to Ed and Elaine's home at about 9:30 p.m.  After taking a walk on the beach next morning and grabbing some lunch, Mark drove to the Wonderland subway station, the last stop on the Blue Line, which acquired its name from an former amusement park and dog racing facility of the same name.  We bought seven-day passes, figuring they were cheaper, even if we were only going to use them a couple of days, than paying for individual fares.  We headed toward the World Trade Center in South Boston where the expo would take place.  We had hoped to get in early, but they weren't letting anyone in until 2 p.m.  

Outside the expo we met a member of the Boston Athletic Association, who was not only running the marathon, but working in the packet pickup area.  We asked him why the expo was at the World Trade Center, instead of the better location on Boyleston Street right near the finish.  He rubbed his fingers together indicating cost was the reason.  Then he wished us luck and went inside to get ready for the initial rush of marathoners.  We waited in line another 20 minutes, but, once in, got our numbers and left after a fairly quick look around.

We had an important mission - to get to the Samuel Adams Brewery for the tour, a taste of a few beers, and, most importantly, to pick up our 26.2 mugs, which were only for entrants in the marathon.  After another jaunt through the subway system, we made it.  The tour was quite enjoyable, conducted by a young woman named Audrey, who was a communications major at Northeastern University and who was doing this as part of her co-op program.  We learned that this original brewery was one of three the company uses to brew its beers.  Its more popular beers are brewed at the other facilities.  This original and smallest one is where new beers are perfected and where small speciality batches are made.  A number of kegs were on racks aging some of the beers, whose alcohol content can go above 25%.

After the tour we sampled three beers, including the 26.2 beer brewed especially for the Boston Marathon and available only at local pubs.  At this point Audrey held a pint in her hand while leading the group in beer tasting.  She engaged in lively repartee with some of the guys on the tour, telling slightly bawdy jokes.  For instance, in explaining how Samuel Adams had perfected a glass for bringing out the best flavor of its beer, she called it "a nice piece of glass".  While acting like a somewhat drunk bar girl, in fact she was only taking small sips from her pint of brew.  

At the end of the tour Mark and I claimed our 26.2 mugs.  They  are huge and heavy, holding at least 24 ounces.  Perhaps the extra half inch at the top, after pouring two 12 ounce beers into the mug, will hold another 2.2 ounces.  I'm not inclined to test it.  The mug has the neat feature of an elevation chart of the marathon, starting at Hopkinton, high on the glass and working it way down to Boston near the bottom.

Friday was opening day for the Red Sox at Fenway Park.  On our way back to the Wonderland station, we ended up on the subway with some Red Sox fans who had driven from Maine to the end of the Blue Line, and used the subway to get into the ballpark.  On their way back, they noticed our Boston marathon bags and started asking questions.  Three of them were men in their 30s to 40s, but the other was a pretty young woman in her 20s.  As the crowd thinned out, I grabbed a seat and the young woman sat down next to me asking questions about running.

She then told me that her husband was on military duty, but that they planned to run the Falmouth Road Race in a few months after his tour ended.  I asked where he was stationed and I noticed her hesitancy as she said Afghanistan. I did not utter one word about my total opposition to that war, but just wished them a good run after he returned.

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The highlight on Saturday was supposed to be a tour of the Harpoon Brewery.  It turns out that it is only three blocks from the World Trade Center, but since it's only open to the public on the weekend, we couldn't have gone on Friday.  Ed came along with us, but we got off late and were a bit confused about which subway lines to take to get there.  But eventually we made it to the brewery at 3:15, which has tours until 5 p.m.  We stood in line as the two people in front of us bought tickets.  The sales person then looked up and announced that was all for today.  We were sort of stunned after going through all the effort to get there.  But we were determined now to have a beer.  We had noticed an Irish bar a couple blocks before the World Trade Center the day before.  So we made our way back there and walked in.

The bar was packed with a young crowd.  The Red Sox were playing and the game on all the TVs was the backdrop.  We ordered three Harpoon beers and then looked for a little bit of room.  A section of the bar had a reception going on.  We decided to try to sit at a table on the far end of it, figuring the worst that could happen was to get thrown out of the area.  A couple was sitting there, who had also sought refuge after going to the marathon expo.  They invited us to sit down.  

The guy, Kevin Carrothers, was in the marathon.  He was an ultramarathoner, used to doing 100 milers.  Then he began to explain that after an ultra race last fall, he had gotten an embolism in his right calf while aboard a plane ride.  He showed us his calf: the inside had an incision scar in the down the entire length; the outside had a three inch wide swath of fresh skin down the entire length.  Kevin explained that muscle tissue, which had been infused with blood from the embolism, had to be removed and the area had to be open to the air for four days.  He had only gotten back to a little bit of running and said his longest run lately had been only six miles.  But he said, as an ultramarathoner, getting through a marathon on less than minimal training was no big deal.  Indeed, he finished in 5:18:29.  In retrospective, I'm glad we missed out on the Harpoon tour, or we wouldn't have met Kevin.

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After we finished our brews, we headed back to the subway to make our way over to the Boston Museum of Science.  Elaine and another one of Mark's sisters, Carol, were going to meet us there.  Mark and I had both received an e-mail from BAA about an exhibit at the Museum about the science of the endurance required to run a marathon.  It sounded like a neat exhibit, but when we inquired about it at the museum, no one knew anything about it.  They said there was a room with some old running shoes, but that was it.  Somebody really goofed up on this one.

After seeing an Imax film on ancient Greece, we headed to a local restaurant for food.  As we did almost every evening, we watched either the hockey game (Bruins or Flyers) or the Red Sox the evening they got pummeled 18 to 5.  Bruins fans were rooting for the Flyers to beat the Penguins.  In fact during the marathon while on Commonwealth Avenue, where all the young crowd was partying, I saw a guy with a tee shirt that had on it "I Hate Sidney Crosby".

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Sunday was a quiet day.  While I went for a 3.5 mile loosening up jog, Mark walked, again by the beach.  Later, we went over to Mark's sister Carol's house for a pasta dinner (and to watch the Flyers and Penguins mix it up).

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Monday morning we were up by 5:30.  Ed had driven Mark to Boston Commons  where the buses were lined up to take us out to Hopkinton before several other of the marathons, so the plan was to do the same.  Mark said if we left at 6:30, it would be no problem.  But as we drove over the Charles River into Boston, the traffic came to a stop.  It took a half hour to get off the bridge.  For some reason, with the marathon that day and the Red Sox game starting at 11:00, transportation officials had decided it was a good day to close a tunnel, forcing all the cars coming off the bridge to choose other ways to go.  We finally got to Boston Commons at 7:30, about the time the last bus was officially scheduled to leave.  Mark knew there would be buses almost until eight and sure enough there were.  We got on one in the last set of them.

While standing in line for the buses, we started a conversation with Raul Olmo, who is from the Philadelphia area.  Raul, who is about 50, works in construction and has also coached kids in running.  He had similar issues to Mark with osteo-arithritis in his knees.  They talked the entire time on the trip out to Hopkinton and Raul gave Mark renewed hope that the shots he took may just not have been in the right spot.  Mark still hopes to get back to running after talking with Raul.  By the way, Raul, who was probably in 3:20 shape, ran 3:45:55.

Meanwhile I was sitting with Susan Powers from Florida, who had stayed in a hotel just across the street from where the buses were picking people up.  Her husband was starting in the first corral and was already on his way to Hopkinton.  She waited until the last buses was leaving.  Like me, she had started running relatively late in life, but was very enthusiastic about it.  It was to be her first Boston and she finished in 4:19:51.

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Arriving at the athletes' village in Hopkinton, after the obligatory pit stops, we made our way under a big tent.  It was already in the 70s and I was determined to stay as cool as possible as long as possible.  We found a fairly clear spot, put down some plastic bags, and sat on the grass.  Drinking fluids, we talked.  A young woman nearby heard us mention Delaware and she perked up.  Turns out she was Stacey Black from Bear.  We exchanged pleasantries and I even discovered she intends to take her son for his birthday party to my son's rock gym.  Stacey ran 3:50:27, a great result in that heat.

After the first wave left, the space was roomier.  We applied sunscreen and substances to prevent chafing of various body parts. Eventually we made our way to the portajohns with no lines for one last pit stop.  A few minutes after the second wave disappeared, we figured it was time to go.  Our figuring was off as we ended up in a slow moving sea of humanity.  I realized we were back among the charity runners and would have a hard time getting to our corrals.  We got out of the street and made up some distance on the sidewalk, but never did quite get to our designated corrals.  In the long run it made little difference.  Times are based on chips, but I was annoyed initially that it took me almost five minutes to cross the starting line.

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When the race started I noticed early on the things were going to be different.  After the two initial downhill miles, my pace slowed in chunks of time on each successive mile.  By the first water stop, I was thirsty and I slugged back both water and Gatorade and then went to the water stop on the other side of the road a hundred or so yards up for more water to throw on my head, neck, back and chest.  My legs never felt "runnerish".  My arms got goose bumps (a sign of overheating).  It probably took a third of the distance before my body was starting to properly deal with the heat.

Meanwhile I noticed how quickly the enthusiasm of the participants had dissipated.  By 5K it was quiet amongst the runners.  People had already withdrawn into their focus on keeping going.  There were no easy early miles.  It became the Water Stop Tour.  The water thrown on the body evaporated in less than five minutes and by the time the next water stop appeared (only a mile down the road), the clothes were dry and the hands were hot.  People weaved from one side of the road to the other for the two aid stations at each mile.  BAA had doubled the amount of water available for each runner from five gallons to ten.  Misters and sprays from hydrants had the runners veering to the sides of the road.  Volunteers and ordinary citizens handed out ice cubes, wet paper towels or small sponges, and shot water guns at willing runners.  The focus was not the next mile or 5K split, it was the next bit of fluid to consume or throw on one's body.

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At about two miles I came upon Doug White and Paul Schweizer.  Doug was attempting to complete his 39th straight Boston.  He's been a great runner for years, but his knees are betraying him.  He'll do one more to make it 40 in a year and then retire.  Doug had told me the previous Wednesday that he intended to go at about 10:40 pace, but that was assuming decent weather.  Since I intended to run about ten minute pace I gave up any idea of running with him.  Paul hadn't gotten into the race officially this year, but was running it accompanying Doug as he has done for years.  

When I came up on them, I joked, "Hey, no bandits at Boston!"  Doug recognized me without looking around and said, "Oh, there's McCorquodale!"  Paul, who had a belt with bottles on it, said that it was a good thing he was there because Doug had forgotten his stuff.  I went on by, having not yet quite heated up and figuring Doug was going slower than I.

After about six miles I happened across an old Hash House Harrier friend from the Philadelphia area who goes by the hash name of Dancing Fool.  He generally comes out to Hopkinton each year.  He's taken a picture of me and Carolyn several times with a gas station sign in the background, to document the rising of prices over the years.  Dancing Fool's thing is to pick up trash.  He's done this on hashes and he does it as a bandit in the marathon.  He's basically walking and jogging and usually jumps into the event beyond the starting line.  He finds trash the others miss, not the stuff that will be cleaned up by the race organization.  When I caught up to him, I said "ON, ON!", the hasher's call that he is on the right trail.  He took my picture as I jogged by.

Shortly afterward, Doug and Paul went by me as I had already slowed.  It appeared they had sped up a bit.  Doug seemed covered in beads of sweat.  Over the course of the race, Doug eventually was slowed drastically by muscle cramps, had to do a lot of walking and finished in 6:15:38.

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Getting through the race was a group effort - runners, volunteers and the hundreds of thousands of civilians.  We runners could not have made it without them - those who weren't running, but who were also there out in the sun for hours and hours, handing out water cups, or gels, whatever individuals got out of their houses.  One woman had a small stand of all sorts of small things runners might need - vaseline, pens, ibuprofen.  Little kids stood and held small dixie cups of water their parents had poured.

And, of course, there were endless words of encouragement, particularly if one pinned a sign on like I did - "Go Dave!"  I must have heard it 5,000 times.  Sometimes, in other events, I've gotten tired of it.  But not this time.  Every "Go, Dave", even if from a guy who had already had one too many beers, was helping to will me forward.

The Wellesley co-eds, just past the 20K split, seemed to be more competitive than ever with their "Kiss Me" signs.  "Kiss Me, I'm from Maine", "Kiss Me, I'm from Cali", "Kiss Me, I'm a Senior", "Kiss Me, I'm Graduating", and my personal favorite (No, I did not kiss her) - "Kiss Me, I'm a Nerd".  For 300 yards, I probably came out of the 12 minute pace I had settled into and "sped up" to a ten minute pace.  So did everyone around me, and when we were past, we settled back down into our ever-slowing slog.

After passing Newton Falls, the lowest spot on the course before getting into Boston, the four successive hills, combined with the effort one was going through to keep the body cool, really slowed us all down.  First a 13 minute mile, then 14 minute mile, then two 15 minute miles.  Eventually everyone was walking.  When I stopped "running" to walk on the third hill, I was breathing so hard that it took me five minutes of walking for my breathing to slow to a semblance of moderate breathing.

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Somewhere in the Newton Hills I passed Dick Hoyt, 71, pushing his son Rick, who has celebral palsy, but whom Dick has brought through many events, including Ironman Triathlons, in a chair.  They start early these days and in that heat it was all Dick Hoyt could do to walk pushing the chair.  He was accompanied by four or five other people along side him.  Concerned volunteers kept coming from the side of the road, asking him if he needed anything. The Hoyts finished in 7:22:20.

Having gone uphill so slowly, the downhills and on into Boston were a bit faster, if you consider 13 and 12 minute paces "faster".  Eventually, I finished in 5:25, over an hour slower than what I felt capable of doing if the weather had been nice.  But what an experience!  I've got many memories.  

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Mark had his own interesting experiences back among the last few hundreds of participants.  Most notably, he met a woman, J. Jill Cummins, who had dealt with an issue similar to his.  She had damaged a tendon in a foot and had decided to walk.  She had a protective boot on the foot.  Mark said she had a totally positive attitude about the situation.  It became even more inspiring to Mark when she mentioned at some point that during the last year she had had a double mastectomy.  She ended up finishing right behind Mark, who hit his 6:40 prediction.

Also around Mark was a guy named Kevin Petrovek, who had done 31 straight Bostons.  He had a problem that didn't allow him to run and has walking.  He slowed and did no stay up with Mark, but finished in 7:14.  There was the woman who carried a sign all the way.  While I was waiting for Mark to finish, I saw her proudly holding it  aloft - "Run with the 99%".  One guy juggled four balls the whole way.  A few moments before Mark went by, there was Dancing Fool again.  I called out and he came over, handed me his camera and had me take his picture.

After Mark got his bag and changed he met up with me and his sister Carol and her daughter.  We had some food nearby, but Mark felt somewhat disoriented, probably somewhat dehydrated from the experience.  At least he wasn't among the 2,200 people who had to get help in a medical tent. Feeling somewhat better, I had one of the 26.2 Samuel Adams beers.  It was OK, sort of a light sort of concoction, but Sam's Summer Seasonal is a much better, similar sort of brew.  

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Tuesday was to be a recovery day before we headed back to Delaware on Wednesday.  We went out and got the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald for their accounts of the race.  Each had a good story by a reporter who had run the event.  

Later we drove up to Salem for lunch.  While walking around after lunch, we went into the visitors center looking for a restroom.  Entering the building I saw a younger guy with the 2012 Boston Marathon jacket on and asked him how his race went before taking a closer look at him.  He turned his face toward mine to address me and I noticed his eyes were sort of darting back and forth as he spoke.  Then I noticed his cane, and realized he was either blind or greatly visually impaired.  Nevertheless, we had a good conversation about our respective efforts.

Eventually, we asked where he was from:  Fort Collins Colorado.  He asked where we were from:  Delaware.  "Oh, really!  I went to graduate school at the University of Delaware."  Turns out his wife, who had been sitting behind us, grew up in Delaware, went to Ursaline Academy and the U. of De.  They had left in 1995.  Travis Trampe ran the Boston Marathon with the help of a guide in 3:20:08.

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All in all, Mark and I were left feeling that our complaints - he dealing with arithritic knee pain and me just getting a bit older and slower - paled in comparison to what some folks went through to complete this event.  We were fortunate to be able to get out there and finish it with over a half million folks cheering us on.  Life is good!