Peter's Team Diabetes Triathlon (and formerly Marathon) Blog

WARNING - Very long race report follows so get comfortable ...


As most of you probably know by now, I was given the opportunity to participate in the 2007 Boston Marathon, not as a qualifier by virtue of a previous marathon time, but rather as a guest of Manulife/John Hancock Insurance, the title sponsor for the event. I have entitled this race report, “Promise Made, Promise Kept” because John Hancock’s marketing image is currently based on the theme of promises. So, for example, before the race we were invited to share our own personal promise about why we were running and we were given a blue wristband with the slogan, “It’s all about the promises”. In my case, my promise related to being diabetic and modeling the importance of an active healthy lifestyle.

My drive to Boston from Fredericton started in the middle of a storm which dumped approximately 20cm of snow on our region. This was definitely a sign of things to come. For several days I had been anxiously watching the forecasts and they were all bad. So bad that the race organizers took special steps to send out weather advisories to participants suggesting that we be prepared for cold, wind, rain and snow. In other words, conditions exactly the same as I’ve faced during most of my training runs in January, February and March.

As I got through northern Maine the snow turned to rain and as I got closer to Boston the rain subsided and the weather became quite reasonable. This was definitely the calm before the storm though as every radio and TV station seemed to be focused on the Nor’easter that was making its way into the region having cut a path of destruction across other parts of the US. The mayor of New York City had begun emergency measures preparations, low-lying areas were preparing for flooding and so on. It was clear however that barring a major disaster such as a massive power failure or some such thing, the race would NOT be cancelled.

I had arranged accommodations at a hotel on the outskirts of Boston for the first two nights of my stay. I was in the town of Woburn which is just off the I-95 highway that runs from New Brunswick through Maine and on to Boston. Woburn is right on the commuter rail line into Boston’s North Station, the central hub for the subway system (known in Boston as the “T”) so it was convenient and a lot less expensive that staying in the heart of the city.

Saturday morning I was up early and made my way by commuter rail/subway to the Hynes Convention Centre where the race registration and runner’s expo takes place. Registration was already very busy but extremely well organized, the volunteers were super friendly and within a matter of 3 or 4 minutes I had everything done. From there it was into the expo to browse the hundreds of booths – running shoes, apparel, nutrition, souvenirs, other races, etc. I knew exactly what I wanted to buy at the expo – the “official” Boston Marathon jacket, an adidas running jacket with the Boston logos on it and a long-sleeve technical tee from Saucony (the brand of shoe that I wear) that had the slogan “2B0ST0N7” (translation “Boston 2007”) emblazoned on it. I found what I wanted, looked about at all the other cool stuff and then headed back out to Woburn. I did a short 20-minute run when I got back, went for an early dinner and then relaxed, knowing that it would not be easy to sleep the next night.

Sunday morning I moved from Woburn into the city where I would be staying at the Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel, the official race headquarters, for the next two days. The hotel was located right at the finish line for the marathon and was absolutely beautiful. After I got checked in I headed off to the Team Canada Boston Tea Party brunch that was held at the Hard Rock Café, about a block from the hotel. It was a fun event and I had the chance to see the trophy that Tom Longboat, an aboriginal Canadian who won the Boston Marathon in 1907, was presented. I was also interviewed at the brunch by some graduate students from Emerson College in Boston who had contacted me before hand and asked if they could do a story about me for one of their classes and to broadcast on their College’s internal TV network.

After the breakfast I headed back to the hotel and started to prepare myself, my clothes and all the gear that I would need for the next day’s race. The weather was already miserable and there were endless variations on the forecast so it was really hard to decide what I would actually wear to get out to the start, what to wear whilst waiting for the start and what to wear during the run. I suspect that there were 22,000 other runners all fretting about the same thing at that same moment and throughout the rest of the day, evening and into the next morning.

Early on Sunday afternoon my brother Bill and our long-time friend Mike Collins arrived from Ottawa. They had driven 8 hours through miserable weather just to be able to see me for a few seconds on race day! I am so grateful for the fact that they did so. They even came bearing a gift – a Garmin runners’ GPS watch. It was something that my family in Ottawa had all chipped in to buy for me and I can’t wait to try it out this weekend.

The night before a marathon is traditionally when runners “carbo load” – a dinner of pasta that will provide energy for the activity of the next day. As part of the Manulife/John Hancock team I was invited to a private carbo-load dinner held in the hotel and it was great. I met the other members of the “team” together with some of the Manulife employees who were running and some of the senior management of the firm. We had a motivational speaker, Denise, who is a Manulife rehab case manager in Halifax who took up running only a couple of years ago, ran a 3:15 marathon in her first ever race of any distance (and in so doing winning the PEI Marathon) and I believe she is now a 2:45 marathoner. She is also a 30-something single mom of 3 young girls. AMAZING. Sadly, she sustained an injury with a week to go ‘till marathon day and had made the tough decision to withdraw. Of course, that did stop her from being out front of the hotel at 6 a.m. on race morning in the cold, wind and rain to wish us well as we loaded onto the buses to get to the start. I say again, AMAZING !! After dinner it was back to the room to catch the last period of the Sens-Pens game (good karma that the Sens won) and then to bed to TRY and catch a few zzz’s. By and large that was fruitless though as I was far too nervous to get any meaningful rest.

At 5:30 a.m. the hotel room alarm clock went off, the front desk phoned with my wake up call and all the watches with alarms on them that we had set the night before signaled that it was time to get going. I got dressed, ate a bit of breakfast and headed off to the rendez-vous point. After a quick briefing we were loaded onto buses and shuttled out to the start area, the small town of Hopkinton. Once there we were escorted to the middle school where we had a special indoor waiting area. This was invaluable given the conditions. I felt sorry for all the people who were forced to wait outside for two to three hours prior to the start of the race. That said, on a day such as it was, I sure wasn’t about to voluntarily relinquish my “VIP” spot simply for the notion of egalitarianism.

While in the school I met a number of really interesting people. One was a fellow who would be running the entire marathon in a tuxedo and top hat. He had been doing this for several years and I wished him luck holding onto the hat in the windy conditions. I also met a couple who were going to be getting married during the marathon – appropriately (?) enough at the top of Heartbreak Hill where a tent was set up and family/friends were waiting. She was dressed in all-white running attire, complete with a veil and he was all in black with a shirt painted to look like a tuxedo. Accompanying them was a runner who would be videotaping things and he turned out to be a 2-time Olympian for the USA in the race walk event.

Just before 10 a.m those of us in the second wave start (people with start numbers above 11,000) were shepherded out of the gym and down the narrow streets of Hopkinton to the starting corrals. It was a sight to behold – thousands of runners packed together in all manner of clothing designed, mostly in vain, to keep them dry and warm as long as possible. People were wearing shower caps on their heads, garbage bags over their torsos, plastic shopping bags over their shoes, etc. We must’ve been quite a sight! While we were still shuffling towards our start corral the gun went off but it was almost 10 more minutes before I crossed the start mat and was on my way.

Prior to the start I had made arrangements with 4 other folks from Team Manulife to run together, since we were all aiming for a 4:30 finish. Unfortunately, as we were moving toward the start, two of the group got separated from us and so we were down to three – me, Noel and Beth. Not to worry though we figured there would be lots of time to eventually meet up with them and indeed we did not long after the start.

The Boston course is well known for having a fairly significant descent right at the start and it proved to be exactly as advertised, perhaps even a bit steeper than I expected. Of course at that point nobody has a care in the world so it’s just a matter of finding a little open space and enjoying the ride. Before I knew it the 1 mile marker appeared and I checked my watch and pace band to see whether we were on target. I was expecting to find that we were slightly ahead of pace but not so. We were exactly on 4:30 marathon pace.

The next few miles wound their way through the countryside of Hopkinton and Ashland. Despite the weather there were lots of people out alongside the road cheering us on. I had worn my name on my jersey so they would call out, “Go Peeta”, “Go Keynada” or “Go Team Diabeedeze” (that’s my best effort at translating the Bostonian accent into written form!). There were also tons of signs, some professionally made, some hand painted on old pieces of plywood offering support to runners in general or to specific runners. I remember seeing a lot of signs for a teacher, Ms. Johnson, from her Grade 2 class. Pretty neat. There was also a lot of cheering for people from “Dana-Farber”, a local Boston children’s charity.

As the race continued I settled into a nice rhythm with my partners and we chatted about all manner of things. Beth joked that her kids said she ran like a grandmother. At first she was upset but she got over it – since she IS a grandmother !! Not long after this conversation we were running by the front of a store that had floor to ceiling front windows and a sign suggesting that we runners check out our “form” in the reflection as we passed by. Beth got me howling with laughter when she looked in the window and explained, “Oh my God, I DO run like a grandmother”.

I’m sure that I will remember other sections of the course more clearly in the days ahead but one of my fondest memories is of approaching the outskirts of Wellesley. Somewhere around mile 12 we could start to hear a lot of cheering ahead and the closer we got the louder it became. We were about to enter the famous Wellesley College (an elite women’s only College) Scream Tunnel area. It was overwhelming. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of young female students lining the barricades all yelling as loud as they could – a tradition that goes back years and years. The noise was deafening, they were holding signs asking the runners to stop and give them a kiss and many were wearing T-shirts that said Wellesley Girls Kiss But Don’t Tell (or words to that effect). Not wanting to be rude, I obliged many a young co-ed with a peck on the cheek !!!

After leaving the Wellesley Scream Tunnel the course passed through Wellesley’s town center. Just as I had hoped, my brother Bill and our buddy Mike were there so I called out to them, they took some pictures, I gave them both a hug and off I went. They probably couldn’t see the tears streaming down my face. It was absolutely fantastic to see them and it gave me a real boost. As I chugged off they called out that they would see me at the finish line.

After Wellesley we passed the campus of Boston College and once again the road was lined with screaming BC students. They were a lot rowdier than the Wellesley girls but every bit as encouraging to the runners.

At some point near here I recall that I was running near a group of 2 or 3 20-something ladies. We went by one of the professional photographers’ locations and I heard them chatting that when they get to the next photo location they ought to do something different for the pic. I looked over and they were starting to remove the long-sleeve shirts that they had on over top of their running jerseys. I said to them, “I hope you’re not getting ready for a Girls Gone Wild moment because if you are, my wife won’t be impressed if I’m caught in the photo.” They laughed and assured me that there was nothing else coming off besides the outer layer.

Next up was the most infamous section of the course, the Newton Hills. This section starts at about mile 16, runs to mile 22 and includes 4 separate hills. None of the hills are very steep but coming where they do on the course they are quite a challenge. The last of the 4 hills is the famous (infamous?) Heartbreak Hill. Contrary to popular belief, it is not so-named because of its size. Rather, it is because of a heartbreak that occurred there one year during the race when the leader was passed at that spot by the eventual winner.

By this time in the race I had become separated from my four running partners. One had started to experience stomach problems and was having to make frequent pit stops at the porta-potties. Another had fallen back unable to maintain the 4:40 marathon pace and two seemed to have gone on ahead. I was struggling a bit with pace as well and at the foot of Heartbreak Hill I realized that my goal of 4:40 was not likely going to happen as I was 2 or 3 minutes behind, I could feel my stride shortening and I knew that there were some tough miles to come. I resolved though that I would at least run every step up the hills and not slow into a walk. I figured it would be a bit of a moral victory if nothing else.

As I was going up Heartbreak I passed two guys who were running dressed as Elvis – white jump suits, big hair, sunglasses, etc. One even had a fanny pack containing a small stereo playing nothing but Elvis tunes. As I went by it was “Hound Dog” playing on the boombox. The spectators of course loved these guys and they got huge cheers.

After Heartbreak Hill the course has a net decline in elevation but that is a bit deceiving because there are actually two or three inclines to contend with and each of them seems formidable at that stage. During this section of the race I ended up meeting one of the 2 chaps from my group who had gone out ahead. He was reduced to a walk because of a knee (ITB) injury sustained miles earlier. He wasn’t about to drop out though so I wished him well and said that I’d see him at the finish.

As the course was now into the City of Boston proper, the number of spectators was starting to swell. As we passed through the Boston University campus the students were out en force. I remember seeing some on the side of the road who had a big gong and were encouraging runners to come over and give it a bang. I obliged. Just after that there were a bunch of students formed up in two rows of 10 or 15, getting runners to come down the middle and give them high/low 5’s. I obliged.

By then I was taking more frequent walk breaks. Every time I slowed to a walk people would cheer loudly saying things like, “You’re almost there”, “You can do this” and so on. Then, when I would start back into my slow trot they would cheer even louder. It was amazing to think that they had been doing this for more than 4 hours for 22,000 participants.

At this point it started to truly sink in that I was going to finish the Boston Marathon. Around Mile 25 I remember seeing a huge billboard on the side of a building with an ad from adidas that said, “Reason to Run: Real Superheroes Wear Shiny Capes” with a picture of a runner wrapped in the space blanket that they put around you at the finish of a marathon. At that moment the tears started to well up (for what was probably the 50th time that day) as I soaked in the reality of what was happening.

The last mile or so was fantastic. The crowds were huge and they were LOUD. The last section is a short side street and then you make a 90-degree left turn onto Boylston Street. The finish banner is fully visible about 300m ahead, the road is at least 4, perhaps 6 lanes wide and the barricades are holding back huge numbers of spectators. I decided not to focus on running fast to the finish line but rather to take my time and enjoy the feelings that were washing over me. I could literally feel the energy that the crowd was giving off. Just before the finish line I looked up to the right and there in the VIP bleachers were Bill and Mike. I gave them a big wave and then continued on to the finish line pumping my fist in the air over the last few yards.

4:51:27.

Promise made. Promise kept.

PS. Some of you may be wondering what happened to my four running mates. The chap who went out ahead (Jacques) and whom I never saw on course turned out to have had stomach issues and had to make frequent stops along the way. He finished but not sure of his time. Ivan’s knee didn’t stop him from finishing in under 5 hours. Noel, who had stomach issues at the halfway point, finished in a shade over 5 hours and Beth in roughly 5:10. Congratulations one and all.