Race Day +2

I was going to call this a post-mortem, but decided that was a bit too morbid.  So instead, I'm calling it what it is:  2 days after the race.  The story picks up  on Hereford, which is the turnoff from Commonwealth Avenue, as I'm finishing the race.  Hereford is a short, evil street:  evil, because it has a vewwwy (say "wascally wabbit" and you'll understand what that last word was) slight incline, but after 25+ miles, any incline is evil.  In fact, when I ran this race last in 2006, there was a guy that cramped up and was lying in the middle of the street, with a policeman yelling (encouragingly, of course) at him to get up.  Anyway, I turned left off of Hereford, and onto the last stretch on Boylston, and somehow, I didn't remember the Finish Line being THAT far away.  But I got there and finished in 3:44:24.  And if you look at my splits, yes, I really did run a 2 hour back half after a 1:39:50 front half.  Ouch.  And then we had to walk... and walk... and walk.  It really only turned out to be probably less than 1/4 mile to get space blankets, drinks, food, medals, and our clothing, but it was a really long 1/4 mile.  Because there were so many people walking there by the time I finished, we were inadvertently bumping into each other.  And that's when I realized that my legs were really tired.  I had so little muscle strength left in my legs that, everytime I got bumped, I nearly fell over!

Fast forward several hours to my ride on the T to visit my aunt and uncle and their family in Newton.  It was rush hour, and we were packed like sardines.  There were a couple other marathoners on the train, and none of us were able to balance very well.  Whenever the train would stop and start, we would very nearly fall over.  It was comical.

The next morning (Race Day +1), I awoke to some very sore legs.  The trip to the airport on the T was not nearly as bad as the previous night, although descending steps was entertaining.  At the airport, you could spot the marathoners a mile away:  we were all wearing some article of Boston Marathon clothing, and/or carrying the free Adidas poster, and we were all doing the same post-marathon waddle.  The net downhill of the Boston course really punishes your quads (that's eccentric contractions if you want to know the technical term), and, I think, there are very few people who have trained enough on hills to keep the legs from hurting. 

And even with all that, and even with my thoughts throughout my training that this was probably going to be my last marathon, I have taken a look at which marathon I could do to qualify for 2013.  To me, there's nothing like the Boston Marathon.  Maybe if I were to qualify for Kona, I'd feel the same way, but even then, I don't know that I'd appreciate it as much as I do the history, significance, and pageantry of the Boston Marathon.