You think you know a city...
I mean, I had been there before. Hanging over the barricades in Kenmore Square, clad in a Red Sox jersey, cheering for strangers who were 25 miles into a marathon, joined by thousands of others. I'd get choked up being part of the city on those days, remembering all that happened in Boston and Watertown in 2013, and how a city came together to be stronger than ever. I drank the Kool-Aid, declaring Boston as the best city of all the cities ever to be a city. It still is. This place is special. You just don't realize how special until you're on the other side of the fence.
It's a bucket list marathon for anyone into that kind of thing. It's quite possibly the most challenging, it's definitely the most energetic, and talking to people with varying experiences of the Boston Marathon has put all this in perspective for me. This marathon is special. Especially after 2013. Here I am, some guy who likes the Red Sox and grew up where the shootouts happened after the bombing, and you've got Martin Richard's brother and childhood friends running the marathon. You've got people running in honor and memory of people affected in such devastating ways. And you've got people lined up in every city and town from Hopkinton to Boston supporting everyone as they embark on this journey and feat of the human body.
The race itself...marathons are freaking hard. A year ago, I had never run more than 10 miles in my life. Seven months ago, I had never run more than a half marathon. And in the past 2.5 months alone in training, we went over 13.1 miles seven different times. All the preparation is crucial, because you're going to have to run through so many different things on race day. I finished in 3:59:33, 27 seconds under what I would have considered a good day. 14,373 seconds between start and finish, and 27 seconds was the difference between seeing a 3 versus a 4 in the hour column. If I didn't weave around people for the first two miles...if I waited for a port-a-potty instead of taking a leak in a bush at mile 8...if I stopped one more time to drink all the water in the cup, instead of taking it on the fly...if I didn't force that last half a gel into my body at mile 24.5 despite being sick of gels at that point...if I hadn't run up Heartbreak Hill a dozen times in training and was seeing it for the first time on Marathon Monday...if I hadn't been calculating my remaining distance and available time to four hours for the last five-plus miles to know exactly what I could get away with...you're the conductor of a four-hour symphony, and you have to orchestrate it to get your desired result.
And even then, it wasn't perfect. It would have been nice to stop and talk to friends and family along the course, instead of running by with high-fives or pointing from afar. It would have been nice for it not to rain in Wellesley and run with waterlogged sneakers. It would have been nice to navigate the Newton hills a little more elegantly. It would have been nice for the T not to get stuck underground and prevent my dad from seeing me cross the finish line. Marathons aren't perfect. That's why there's four months of training. The body acclimates itself to an incredibly grueling task. The mind convinces the body of its capabilities over time. My body and mind were both prepared for this day and this race. My heart, however...
Like I said, you think you know a city. This really was all one giant parade. And every day in training, I'd tell myself, we're another day closer to the parade (something the 2013 World Series-winning Red Sox also said). But to actually get to the parade...to have so many people show their support by donating to my fundraising, to receive all the messages of support (and later, congratulations) from everyone, to be part of the embraces at the Common before getting on the buses to Hopkinton and telling Hannah I'll see her soon, to talk on the bus with a 73-year-old guy from California who's much faster than me and running 100 miles a week, to take the walk from Athletes' Village to the starting line and seeing people lined up before the race even begins, cheering and ready to send us off, to see a guy on his front lawn in Hopkinton with a sign that said nothing but "25.3" on it, to hear the scream tunnel at Wellesley College, to make that turn onto Comm Ave. in Newton and hear how loud the crowd is, to hear people yelling out my name all because it's on a piece of athletic tape on my singlet, to go through the underpass on Comm Ave. underneath Mass Ave. and hear almost silence before coming up that hill and seeing Hereford St. within reach, to realizing that Hereford is more of an incline than I thought, to taking that turn on Boylston and realizing that Boylston is a much longer street than I thought...this city puts you on their back. The fastest mile I ran all day was from 25.2 to 26.2, and that doesn't happen without this city carrying me for eight minutes and 15 seconds.
So, that's one parade. Maybe there will be another. For now, I got to experience one of the most rewarding challenges of my life, in the place I get to call home, taking so many people along for the ride. Something I realized weeks ago was that this marathon wasn't going to be just my race. And it wasn't. It's all of ours. The way the city comes together, the way the city puts everyone on their back...this is our fucking city.
