My Boston Marathon Routine

It’s nothing special…

I think we get lost in all the grandiose fluffery of the Boston Marathon, especially this year.  I thought it might be interesting to tell you how I usually spend my weekend to give you some perspective.

Let’s start with Friday.

Usually Friday I’m either just returned from a trip or flying back from somewhere.  Either way I have stuff to do and don’t feel like trucking into the city to visit the Expo.  Friday is usually my last token workout before the race.  Traditionally I’ll do a short 2 – 4 mile tune up run with a nice fast close to burn off some adrenaline.

Friday night I’m starting to cut back on calories to try and keep from getting too bloated going into the race.  I’ll try to eat lightly and eat something easily digestible with some carbohydrates.

Saturday morning I’ll get up and do my normal Saturday chores in the morning. These are things like laundry and cleaning.  I’ll stay away from anything strenuous or involving heavy lifting.  I’ll start thinking about the stuff I have to pull together for the race.

At some point in the late morning I’ll drive into the Alewife T station in Cambridge.  I do this because no one in their right mind would try to drive a car into Boston on Marathon Weekend.  You add a parcel of clueless out-of-staters to the normal crazies and traffic is a nightmare. Even if you managed to get into the Hynes in one piece you’ll discover that parking, if you can find it, is $40 an hour.

I avoid all that by jumping on the Red Line in Cambridge.  I ride the train into North Station and take the Green line out to the Pru.  It’s fun to ride the train and see all the competitors milling about.  When my kids were younger they used to go into the Expo with me.  It was like Christmas for them with all the vendors and commotion.

I’ll go to the Expo in the Hynes and pick up my packet.  I love the part where the volunteers ask if I’ve ever run the race before and I can smile and say ‘yes’.  I’ll usually wear an old race shirt or one of my old race jackets to show the colors.  I bring a bottle of water with me so I can stay hydrated.

I’ll walk the floor of the Expo saying ‘hi’ to the vendors I know and generally acting like an affable smart-ass.  I might nibble on one of the energy bars or sample the treats.  I’ll take some pictures or maybe even some video.  I usually try to buy something like a racing hat to have a memento of the race for later years.

Sometimes there is a meet up of some sort but usually after an hour or so I make my way back out of town.  It’s usually mid-afternoon when I get home and I’ll take the dog for a long walk to burn off some energy.  I’ll eat a light meal and go to sleep.

At some point over the weekend I’ll get to the massage therapist’s place of business and pick up her tables for use in the after-race hotel room my club sponsors.  Since I’m Mr. Frequent Flyer I book a room for Monday night and set the whole thing up.

I’ll drop the tables and a bag of clean clothes off with the other members of my club who have volunteered to set up the room and meet the massage therapist.  On Monday morning they will get into town early, use my influence with the Marriott to check in early and hopefully get a room and shuttle a bunch of stuff up to the room.

They meet the massage therapist and bring up the tables.  They bring up coolers of food and drinks.  They raid the hotel’s linens for piles of extra towels and ice.  They make ready for us who will be limping in exhausted and elated later in the day.  We won’t know the room number when we leave Hopkinton.  We will go to the lobby and ask for a name, call up and have someone tell us the room number and let us in.

Saturday night and Sunday I don’t do much.  I laze around and read the newspaper and do light chores.  I put my stuff together for the race putting the bib number on my racing singlet and making sure everything fits.  I’ll dress for the race then remove everything and lay it out in situ for the next morning.

I don’t go to any of the Saturday or Sunday events or pasta dinners.  It’s too much of a hassle to get in and out of the city and would be a waste of energy.

I don’t have any trouble sleeping Sunday night.  I just go to bed early or maybe read a little then fall asleep.

Monday morning I get up around 6:00AM and get ready.  I’ll start my coffee and oatmeal.  I’ll sit in front of the TV and massage my legs with FlexAll preheat and stretch a little to get the blood flowing.  I’ll put on my race gear and an old sweats over that to be discarded at the start.

This year will be different but in previous years I would pack my check bag with stuff for the morning in Hopkinton.  Things like a trash bag to sit on and all the other sundries.  These we would shove into a school bus window according to our bib number as we made our way to the starting corrals, to be picked up again after the finish downtown.

Sometime around 7:30 I’ll catch a ride with one of my club mates to be ferried out to Hopkinton.   It’s about a 20 minute drive up the highway.  We get off at the Hopkinton exit heading north, away from the start.  There is an office park here where you can be dropped to catch a bus into Hopkinton.

We’ll take some pictures, use the porta-potties, and joke around with the other nervous lot.  There are usually two buses.  One line of buses is to shuttle onlookers into downtown Hopkinton and the finish line.  The other is to shuttle the athletes out to Athlete’s Village at the Hopkinton High School.

I typically get on the one going downtown with the sightseers.  I find the athlete buses take a roundabout route to the back of the school that takes forever.  It’s easier to take the direct bus to the starting line.  On a nice morning you can check out the corrals and there are a couple hundred brand new porta-johns near the start that you can take your pick of.  Then it’s a leisurely stroll up the hill about a ¼ mile to the high school.

The Hopkinton High School is a mob scene with loud music and thousands of people milling about.  If the weather is bad it’s a quagmire.  We usually stay away from the commotion and find a quiet corner of the field to do our final stretching and prep.

We try to time our last visit to the porta-john lines correctly.  As the waves are called we say our goodbyes and make our way back down the hill to our spots.

Somewhere up ahead there are announcers and singers and other such stuff but back in the corrals we can’t hear any of it.  We tell jokes and nervously shift our weight until the ropes are pulled and the 1,000 runners in our corral surge forward to merge with the corrals ahead and behind.

At some point we start to surge forward and I walk because I am familiar with the start-stop cadence of a big race. At the top of the hill we wave to the news cameras and are set free to face our lot like those famous men and women who have trod this ground before us for more than one hundred years.

At the end of a normal Boston Marathon I’ll collect my bag and make my way over to the hotel.  I’ll take some photos at the finish and try to start drinking some water if I think I can keep it down.  I’ll try to help the sick, wounded and lost as much as I can but we all stumble forward and are vomited out in a great smelly, tired sea of shiny blankets into the family reunion area.

As soon as I can find a break in the fences I push through the crowds and grope my way towards the hotel.  At this point in the day the sea breeze through the buildings is starting to be chilly and we make a sorry site clutching our space blankets and bags of miscellany.  We nod to each other in solemn congratulations.  The tourists wish us well and part for us as we stumble down the sidewalks.

Occasionally you’ll see a runner down on the sidewalk, ashen and sick with the delayed exhaustion setting in.  They can carry on no farther.  Their families minister to them and keep them warm.  Sometimes I’ll sit on a ledge or pause to lean on a wall.  We all approach curbing as if it is the great wall of China or the flanks of Everest waiting to be scaled.

In the Hotel lobby I ironically ask for my own name and call up to the room.  We enter the club room to the warm cheers of our faster mates and proffered succor of the volunteers.  We tell our story and compare notes.  We sit and eat and drink.  We get a massage and take the best hot shower of the year.  Not necessarily in that order.

Later, as the sun is dropping low behind the cityscape and the stragglers lurch down Boylston I make my way to the Green Line and head back out to Alewife to meet my wife for dinner or head to the airport for my next gig.  Where ever I travel, for the next 24 hours I will have a proud unicorn strung around my neck and peeking out of my jacket.

And kind people will ask me if I won.