The Road to Boston, Part 6 – After The Race

The Walk of Death

There is a little known aspect to marathon races and that is what I call the walk of death. This is the chute marathon organizers force you to walk through so you can slow down gradually and pick up your medal, water, food, etc. What you see in front of you looks like the pic below. Hundreds of people walking VERY slowly and often times meandering all over the place, as they make their way to the exit where they can meet up with their families and friends. There are a LOT of hurting people at the end of a marathon. I know, I have been one of them more times that I care to remember. Luckily on this day I was not one of those people.

This is how I know if my race was good or not. If I am walking the same or slower pace then all these people then it was probably not all that great. But if, like on this day, I am weaving through all these slow pokes then I know I had to have done pretty well. I had places to go, people to see and they were in my way!

Family and Friends

I actually slowed down considerably on Boylston because I was filming and looking for my family and Friends. The entire time I was running I was thinking about making my friends and family proud. Of course I knew that no matter what I did they would be proud of me, but they were there for me and I wanted them to be happy and excited about it all. I envisioned them cheering me on and seeing them all for a big celebration afterwards. I wanted to have a good showing for that, and so I would be able to function for the hours of socializing afterwards!

While I was running the marathon they were enjoying breakfast, meeting new friends and gathering at the finish line. ‘They’ in this case included a total of 11 people, a huge personal crowd for me! I had my wife Linda, sister Jackie, her mother-in-law Diane, and my daughter Chelsea. In addition, since I spent my Jr High and High School years in Connecticut I had a crew of HS friends show up as well. They included Jim M. and his son, Cathy M. , Jim H. and Helen E. In addition my sister Jackie’s best friend Sarah and her son came to visit with her and experience the marathon as well.

High School Pals – 49 years later!
from right – Jim H., Helen E., Jim M., me, Jim’s son

Jackie, and Darien High School friends Cathy M., Jim M., Jim H.

Panoramic view of our celebration after the race

The Mile 27 After Party

One of the coolest things after the race is what is called the ‘Mile 27’ after party. It takes place Monday night at Fenway Park, home to the Boston Red Sox Baseball Team. If you like to drink beer then it’s fun to go to the after party. I don’t drink at all so I wasn’t interested in that.

BUT, I have been a huge Red Sox fan since 1975 when they almost won the World Series and there is no more iconic baseball park in all the world than Fenway Park. It was built in 1912, much older than almost any other active stadium and it shows. It is like going back in time to enter it. Inside they had some statues of famous old ballplayers who came to life as we walked around them. It was very cool!

Baseball Players of Old

The Green Monster

The most unique feature in the ball park (and really of any ball park) is the ‘Green Monster’. A gigantic wall in left field that cuts off much of left field. There is a road right on the other side of it and when they couldn’t demolish the road they just built a big wall instead.

On The Field

The other cool thing, if you are a baseball fan, is that they let you down on the field to walk what is called the warning track. There you can see the hand worked scoreboard (unchanged in over 100 years) and stand next to the wall.

World Series

And at the end of the line on the warning track are the 4 World Series trophies the Red Sox have won. It may not seem like that big a deal but they had a drought from 1919 until 2004. That drought was called ‘The Curse of the Bambino’ because after their winning 1918 season they traded their star pitcher (yes pitcher) Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. He of course went on to be the greatest home run hitter of all time for many decades, leading the Yankees to numerous World Series wins while the Red Sox languished forever in the dregs of baseball. But finally in 2004 they broke through and have done very well since then.

Conclusion

As I looked around the park I thought about how much I love baseball but that it a sport I don’t participate in. I watch it, as do all but the most elite baseball players. But that is not so with running. Just a few hours before this I was running the same course at the same time as the most elite runners in the world. Not many other sports can claim that level of coolness or accessibility.

We got back to the hotel around 9:30pm. We left the hotel at about 6:30am so it was about a 15 hour day including about 6-7 hours of walking, talking, eating and climbing stairs after the race. But I didn’t feel the least bit tired or exhausted until I got into bed. It was just way too glorious of a day, fulfilling every dream I had ever had of the Boston Marathon, for me to feel tired.

I am forever grateful for having found running as an activity all those years ago. I am thankful for all the fellow runners who helped me learn how to be a good runner and racer. I am even more grateful for my family and friends who yelled their hearts out for me at the finish line! And above all, I am grateful for Linda who has supported and indulged me as I trained and coached all these years.

What’s Next?

Linda asked me shortly after Boston, ‘Well, now what?’. I don’t think she would have been surprised if I had said I am done with marathons and will be lowering my mileage to half marathons and below. And before Boston I probably would have told her the same.

But that is not what happened. Here it is almost a year to the day later and since Boston I have led another training season ending in the Dallas Marathon (Dec. ’22), and currently am leading a Dallas Running Club half marathon group for a May ’23 race.

LInda and me with great friends, Evelyn and Joel

Berlin and the pursuit of the Six Marathon Majors

And this summer of ’23 I embark on serious training for my first international race, The Berlin Marathon in September of 2023. If I finish that race I will have completed 4 of the 6 marathon majors (NYC, Chicago, Boston, Berlin) and will only have London and Tokyo left. It’s not a foregone conclusion I’ll achieve this goal but it’s in the realm of possibilities if many things fall into place so why not work towards it, right?