Boston's Run to Remember: Run for Something Bigger than Your Time

Yesterday I ran the 10th Annual Run to Remember Half Marathon in Boston.  I'll have notes about my specific race/training/take-a-ways (yadda, yadda, the same stuff I always do here) in a minute.  But honestly, this race means a lot more to me than all of that, and I'd much rather talk about it as an overall event first.

In other words, grab a snack or a cup of tea, because this could be a long one.

I was at the Run to Remember last year as a volunteer.  It was right after my first half marathon and while I felt running another half so close to my first was a pretty bad idea, I really wanted to be a part of it.  It was just a little over a month after the Boston Marathon bombings and took on a much larger meaning as a result. Volunteering last year was an amazing experience.  The conditions were a little cold and damp, but it was my first experience with a larger race and I knew I wanted to run this one next time.

Boston's Run to Remember is hosted by the Boston Police Department every Memorial Day weekend in honor of all of the fallen police officers who have served.  Upon entering the Expo you encounter this amazing display, which was literally too awesome to capture in one picture:

Each of the flag panels has names of officers and the dates of their tour. 

They also do a ton at the start and throughout the Expo to honor the troops and firefighters.  The race has a race within it between different police officer teams.  The cadets for the Boston Police Academy run as a unit, groups of troops run together.  It's an amazing event and an awesome reminder that for this weekend you are running for more than yourself.

To top it off the race runs through really iconic parts of Boston, starting in the Seaport, running through the city, continuing across the bridge and up and down Memorial Drive, before returning through the city and finishing on the seaport.  It's pretty flat, except for the hills on the bridges, which are not really hills.  The course for 2014 is below:

Course Map for 2014 Run to Remember

As if it couldn't get more awesome, it was also my friend C's first half marathon and I was pretty excited to get the chance to run at least part of that with her.

So to recap: Great cause, awesome course, a friend's first half.  Pretty much a recipe for awesome, even if things go slightly askew.

Oh, and bonus - the BPD (Boston Police Department) knows how to put on a race for 12,000 runners.  I was very happy to see that they had arranged for a suitable number of port-a-potties for the size of the event. (Seriously, this is a quirky obsession of mine.  I take pictures of it way too often, and admit, I judge your race by the port-a-potty-preparation, or PPP factor.  I know.  Obsessive much).

Many port-a-potties.  They had this on the other side too.  Well done BPD

After bonking at Shamrock I devoted a substantial amount of time the week before the race to nutrition and water.  I also SHOULD HAVE devoted more time in the months leading up to solid training and cross-training, but a couple of injuries, Ragnar Recovery, life...well, that was just off.  I plan to step that up from here on out this summer before some big fall races.  But there it is, in print, I'm under-trained for my early summer race schedule. Shmer.  I decided that running this slower was in the cards as a result.  I still have another half in 2 weeks and the Mt. Washington Road Race (aka the Big Bad) in less than a month. There would be no racing of this half.  It would be a nice, easy training pace.

The lovely people at Boston Bodyworker taped up my aching Extensor Tendon, and preemptively taped up my always troublesome calves as well.  They are fantastic by the way, highly recommend if you are in need of some kineso-taping in the Boston area.

The Run to Remember starts EARLY.  A 7 am start on a Sunday meant 2 things in regards to my nutrition plan. 1) Dinner had to be done by 7:00 pm. 2) My tradition of a early morning venti dark roast from Starbucks along with a multi-grain bagel was out.  There are no Starbucks open at 4am on a Sunday in Boston (anywhere?).  Plus, I'm a bagel snob, I didn't want a store bought fake bagel.  So I had to find something else.

I had dinner with my friend M and her friends J & S.  We went to one of the most amazing places I have ever encountered for pre-race fuel.  OMG how have I lived in Boston for so long and never been to Rino's? The place is tiny, 13 tables, and everything is obviously homemade.  The portion sizes are literally insane (I think I ate less than 1/3 of my food and took the rest home for post-race lunch AND dinner).  It was delicious and perfect.  Gnocchi may be my new favorite pre-race food:

Gnocchi for dinner: nom.

The rest of our table's food - ie food for 20, not 4.

Before heading home I had to stop at the store and get some whole wheat bread for toast and some bananas for the next day.  I got home a little after 8:00 pm, plenty of time for 7 hours of sleep before the alarm went off at 3:45 am.

I woke up (as I always seem to) 5 minutes before the alarm.  I started the coffee, crawled back into bed until 4 am and then got up to drink my coffee and eat my toast with peanut butter and a banana.  I also drank a 16 ounce bottle of water, filled my 16 ounce handheld with Gatorade (I prefer to fuel with Gatorade rather than Gu on a race) and was headed out the door by 5:15 to meet M and head into the race. On the way into meeting M/before the start of the race I drank another 20 ounces of water (this obsessive logging of liquids will become relevant shortly, I promise).

J (who is a rock star) drove us to the start at OMG O'Clock (ie any time before Starbucks is open) and had our drop bags.  We walked to the start and I realized I'd accidentally left a jacket on that I really didn't want to lose.  So we found an extra bag, checked it, and then went to use the port-a-potties before the start.  It might have been the fastest trip through there ever in a race for me.  30 minutes before the start and the line was 5 people deep.  For a 12,000 person field.  Seriously.  A+ BPD.

We met up with C by the 10:00 mpm pace sign, snapped a quick picture, sang the national anthem and were ready to start. (Aside-I still get teary every time I hear the national anthem at a race.  I thought it would stop eventually, but it hasn't.  I'm not sure what it is, but I just feel so privileged to be there and healthy enough to do this thing, in this space.  I hope I always tear up at the start of races.)

Ready to start!

I only have one small complaint regarding race logistics.  The 5 mile and half start together.  They said there were 12,000 total runners and 8,000 for the half.  There were not official corrals or waves.  Boston streets are not wide.  That makes for a really crowded field at the start.  The first 2.5 miles were spent dodging people and trying to find some place to move.  This isn't really a complaint, because I wasn't looking to PR or anything, but I wouldn't pick this race for a PR attempt for that reason.  Additionally, the start mat was a little confusing because you cross the finish mat before the start mat.  As a result, my Garmin started about .15 miles early.  Again, not a big deal since I was just having fun, but I would have cared if this had been a PR attempt.

We ran through the (now very crowded!) streets of Boston and really just had a blast.  One of mine and C's coworkers was cheering right at mile 2 and it was really awesome to see her.  Then at the mile 3 water stop a friend of mine and M's was working and we stopped for some high fives and hugs.  It was great.  The first mile was pretty slow while we bobbed and weaved in the crowd: 11:14.  We hit a groove after that and JFR through the city, across the bridge and up and down Memorial Drive.  It was a blast running this part of the course, really.  We chatted, joked around, didn't pay attention to splits, high-fived little kids and police officers, it really was just fantastic.  Splits for miles 2-10: 10:29, 10:20, 10:41, 10:05, 10:11, 10:17, 10:08, 9:41.

M & C were going strong at this point and I could feel that something was super off with me.  I looked down at my hands and realized they had swollen to something like 3 or 4 times their normal size (I am not exaggerating on this, they were ghastly large).  I couldn't really pay attention to what M was saying to me while she was trying to chit chat our way in on the last 5K and at the next water stop I waved them on.  I  knew they could finish stronger than me and I needed to get a handle on...well, my hands.

Mile 11 I walked through a water stop and then some, with my hands over my head.  I got my bearings again and felt less confused/dizzy and started cautiously running.  M&C were long gone by the time I started cautiously running again.  This mile took me 10:27.

I was similarly cautious on Mile 12.  I actually used the water stop here (I never use the first/last water stops in races) just to try and get things stable again.  More walking.  More hands over head.  This took a ridiculously long time for me: 11:37 (not surprised by this at all since I walked for probably close to .2 miles all told.)

When I (thought) I was in the last mile I figured I was really close and could push it again to the finish, hydration problems or not.  I began to actually run like it was a race for the first time all day.  If my Garmin hadn't recorded this I might not have believed it, I CRUSHED* this mile: 7:32 in what I (thought) would be a very fast finish. *(Part of me thinks this must be a data error.  I was going fast, but this is wicked fast for me...I have no explanation for this being the only error in the data though, everything else seemed to record normally.  Things that make you go hmmm...)

This is where I realize the course is long (or my bobbing and weaving earlier really, REALLY added on some distance), because I heard the beep from my Garmin, and knew where we were on the course and definitely had WAY MORE than .1 left to go.  Since I wasn't sure exactly how much was left I pulled it back a little bit but still stayed faster towards the end.  .71 (yes, .71) in 6:38, or a 9:38 pace.

Garmin splits - what a weird finish

For the first time in my race history instead of going straight for water and a bagel I went to the med tent.  My hands were still super swollen (they would continue to be for most of the day.  They eventually got down to about double the size by the end of brunch but they didn't look 100% normal again until I woke up today.)  They took my blood pressure (which was a little off) and pulse.  Had me lay down, asked me a bunch of questions and were super nice. The only thing they didn't give me was an answer to what was going on (which kind of sucks, because my research yesterday/today indicates it could be either dehydration or overhydration, or an electrolyte imbalance caused by either one of the above...ergo making it really hard to figure out what to do better next time.  Grrr....)  Once the light-headedness passed and I felt less out of it I left, met up with M&C and we got our (very cool) medals and made plans for brunch (which is my favorite meal ever and at least half of the reason I run).

We walked to a little place called Barlow's and took a picture for my friend S's "Choose Joy" project.  We had long leisurely discussions of work, running and life.  We just generally enjoyed being there and the amazing experience we had just shared.

I came home and showered before passing out for a really long nap (it was AMAZING) and then started to assess the damage done by this race.  Honestly it really wasn't bad.  Not too sore, Extensor a tiny bit cranky but pretty good considering I just put almost 14 miles on it.  Really, the biggest damage from the day was this obnoxious blister that developed around mile 8.  It's the second time I've gotten a blister in that SAME SPOT during a half.  Methinks a shoe/sock issue might be to blame (which sort of sucks because that's a rather expensive trial-error process to fix).  Warning-gross blister pic below:

13.1 miles always leads to blisters here.  Grrr.  

All in all, a great day with a few setbacks.  Stuff to do before the next race in 2 weeks:  1) I need to figure out this shoe/sock thing.  I can't be dealing with blisters at mile 9 every time.  I've got these nifty Dr. Scholl's blister treatment things that work pretty well to cushion/speed up healing, but I'd rather just not have a problem. 2) I clearly am botching the hydration angle of this half thing.  The problem is I don't know if I'm doing too much or too little.  Or maybe I'm doing the right amount, but need to focus more on salts or something, who knows.  I need to figure that out in the next couple of weeks before the Heartbreak Hill Half, though, for sure.

Even with my slowest half ever and the mile 11/12 shenanigans I feel pretty good.  I had a ton of energy left in the tank.  That's a ridiculously fast finish for me at the end of a half, and would have been more impressive if it had been 13.1 instead of 13.71.  I have very little muscle soreness today at all.  Assuming this blister pack works, I may even go out for a recovery mile or two to see if I can join the RW Summer Run streak. I've never felt strong enough to run the day after a half before, so that's a total win.

I will definitely do this again:

On a Mission from Cod

I have run 3 half marathons to date, so when some friends asked if I would join them on a Ragnar team I figured I was good to go and it would be a blast.  I was definitely right about number 2, I was sort of right about number 1.  Ragnars, it turns out, are HARD.  Like, really, REALLY, HARD.  Definitely a blast, 100% worth it, but that was orders of magnitude harder than a half.  I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's start at the beginning.

Last year while having drinks with some new runner friends I was asked to join a Ragnar team with Digital Running.  They are amazing, by the way.  It was easy to join, they allowed for monthly payments and they took care of everything.  I didn't worry about vans, gas, water, support crews, safety gear, nada.  It was all taken care of.  It cost a bit more initially to run with them then it would have if I was just paying the registration fee, but it was well worth it.  They took care of all of the details.  All I had to do was train and run.  If you're going to do a Ragnar - do it with Digital Running.  And thus was born the amazing team: On a Mission from Cod.

Some of my non-running friends (there are one or two who have read this blog, or so they say) are probably like "um, wtf are you talking about?"  A Ragnar is a ~200 mile, 12 person relay that takes place in 24-36 hours.  Everyone runs 3 legs that total 11-20+ miles, some at night, some on trail, some on the road.  It's a pretty epic undertaking.  But considering I'd run 3 half marathons to date, and my mileage total was pretty low (12.8 miles) I was sure I was fine.

We met near the start in Raynham for a team dinner.  Some of our group were new recruits so it was a good time to get to know each other and make new friends.  We pretty much had a blast, eating a wonderful meal, enjoying good company, and getting ready for our very early start.

At Oh.My.God O'Clock we all got up and headed to the start in Hull.  For those that are wondering, Oh.My.God O'Clock is so early that the Marriott doesn't have coffee yet, so you are sort of wondering how on earth you are going to keep moving, let alone how you are going to run. (To the Marriott's credit, they managed to get coffee up and going before we left.  I took the largest cup they would give me.  This is why I love Marriotts.)  We loaded a day and a half's worth of gear into two 12 passenger vans and started on our way to the start.

The start was beautiful.  Right by the sea...and a Dunkin Donuts.  I got more coffee.  We cheered for our first runner.  I have a lack of pictures here - which is really too bad as it was gorgeous.  The whole time was 50-60 degrees, cloud cover, a light mist at times, but really, perfect running weather.  You'll see later.  I was getting kind of nervous here though. You see, I was runner 2, and even though I only had about 2.5 miles I was a little nervous about keeping my pace and not letting my team down.

What follows is the worst picture of me I've ever posted on this blog, but it's worth it, because it's also my first exchange at a Ragnar ever.  So we'll deal with the fact that it's a terrible pic.

This leg felt fantastic.  No one passed me.  I passed 5 people.  The weather was great.  I was actually speedy enough that when I got to the exchange, my runner wasn't there yet because of traffic.  I saw her running like crazy towards me across the parking lot.  All was good, this was great.  2.5 hilly miles.  Check.

Leg number 14 (or 2, for me) was the one I was fearing the most.  The elevation profile for this leg was not pretty.  In fact it was about 2 miles of a steady hill.  To top it off, I'm a really music dependent runner and there were no headphones allowed on this leg because it ran straight through a really busy road on the Cape. So.  To recap.  5.2 miles.  Wicked hill.  No headphones.  Yikes.

I managed to act cool about it before the exchange though.

I took off.  And I ran.  Easy at first knowing the hill was coming.  I kept hoping that all of the hills I've done lately in training for the Heartbreak Hill Half and Mt. Washington would pay off.  This hill was not Mt. Wasthington, btw.  But it was sustained and lots of people were struggling.  I passed 4 of them with my steady 9:45 miles.  I also got passed by a few people, mostly guys, all of whom were very good cheerleaders for my slow self powering up the hill.  Honestly the hill wasn't the worst, the worst was the cramps that came the second I started running downhill/flat again.  My calves seized up.  I was ready to walk.  I had no music, no distraction.  Just me and wicked crampy legs, and almost 3 miles to go.  And I decided, I would not walk.  Under no circumstances would I walk.  I sang power songs in my head.  I thought about family and friends who have passed and wondered what they thought watching me at that moment, or if they were.  I had mantras.  I kept running.  I was so incredibly happy to finish that leg.

I finished in the dark.  I knew I'd be running the last 4.7 in the dark.  I was sure I could crush that though.  It was the least hilly of the legs.  I was almost done.  I just had to find a way to rehydrate, uncramp and sleep for a little bit before my 3:50 am start.

This leg did not go like I planned.

For starters, waking up from 2.5 hours of sleep to run 4.7 miles is maybe the hardest thing I've ever tried to do.  I was tired and sore and wanted to sleep.  I was also WICKED cranky (<3 to my van mates for not killing me as I got ready - I know I was no Pollyanna.)  I got ready.  I got to the exchange.  I was *terrified* I was going to miss one of the turns on the route.  In retrospect, I should not have been concerned about this.  They are all really well marked.  I should have been concerned about my footing and the road.  Not the turns.  But reason is foggy at 3:50 in the morning and I just wanted to be done.

I was terrified I would lose sight of the runner ahead of me and miss a turn.  So rather than put my headlamp on the ground (ie, smart) I kept looking straight ahead to make sure I didn't lose the guy who was way faster than me and pulling away.  Less than 1 mile into a 4.7 mile leg I stepped into a pothole.  I twisted my ankle. And for the first time in Ragnar I walked.  I walked for a minute to make sure I could, and I could.  It hurt, but I could.  I started to run again and it was tight, really tight.  I ran for a couple of minutes and then walked again.  I thanked God I had carried my cell phone with me, texted my van, and told them I was going to be slower than planned, but I would finish.  I started to run walk to the end.  2 minutes running, 2 minutes walking.

And then, my lovely van came back.  I was so overwhelmed with emotion that they would come to check on me.  Our next runner came out and said she could do my leg.  I said I wanted to finish.  She said she'd run with me.  I was so thrilled to have the company.  And so we "ran." Very, very slowly to the finish.  We averaged 12 minute miles (run/walking) to the end.  I was so incredibly thankful Cheryl was there, and was also so thankful to be able to finish.  I didn't want to let anyone down, but it was nice to have a friend and support at that moment.

*Sadly, no pics of all this, too dark to get anything, but it was amazing.*

And then, our van was done.  Van 2 had about 34 miles left, but we were good.  We got brunch at an amazing place in Truro and enjoyed each other's company and tales, and then we headed to the finish to meet van 2, and cross the finish together.

We were so excited and proud of what we'd accomplished: 192 miles in 30 hours.  We overcame a couple of injuries and had a lot of fun. We were pretty happy to get our medals, though.

We were a little tired and the beer line was long.

But it was worth it, and even though it was harder than a half (by a lot, even without the ankle) I highly recommend a Ragnar.  This will not be my last.  Cheers.