This past Monday the Boston Marathon was held with 30,000 runners taking part in this famous race. The Boston and New York marathons are the two most recognized and popular marathons in the United States. Both are televised and carried live on the day of the race. The unique requirement for the Boston Marathon is that it has a time limit that a runner must run to qualify to enter the race. The time requirement has changed over the years and has added minutes to a qualifying time so that it is easier to meet the requirements to enter. The times are age based so as the runners get older the times are adjusted to make it easier to qualify. While the qualifying times are slower these days it still requires a runner to run a good time for a marathon.
I ran the Boston Marathon many years ago. It was almost a requirement that if you ran a qualifying time you must run Boston. I was not planning on entering Boston after qualifying, but friends of mine that were runners informed me that it was a must thing to do. A friend of mine found two plane fares for one and asked if I would be the extra fare and split the cost. It was a done deal.
Running Boston was a great, if somewhat different, experience for me. I had a sister that lived in Maine and worked a visit with her in my trip. She drove me to Boston and arranged a ride to the starting line for me. A few problems became evident when you are dealing with people that are non-runners. The night before the race, the main meal was lobster. So much for a carbo-load meal for the long race tomorrow. The ride to the starting line was with a group of “bandits” that had not qualified but were going to jump in at the end of the pack and run. We parked about one mile from the start. Since I had a number, I had to run that mile to the registration area. To give the finish truck my warm ups I ran another half mile up a hill to drop off my clothes. I arrived at the starting line with my assigned time group just as the starting gun went off. I lost my friend that shared the plane fare with after the first water stop. The running part of the race was easy for the first few miles as there were so many runners you had to stay in place and go with the group. It got less crowded after about five miles and it was a faster pace. The crowd along the sides were encouraging the entire distance of the race. A somewhat humorous event happened on the plane ride back. Many of the passengers were runners and still had on their warm ups. One gentleman would jump up and start yelling as he tried to get the muscle cramps out of his legs. He kept saying, “They wouldn’t let me stop and walk.” Spectators have a booklet with all the runner’s names and numbers in it. When he stopped to stretch out his cramps the people along the side would look up his name and start yelling at him to keep running.
I have written several articles about speed training and how it can help you run a faster race. This year’s Boston Marathon was a perfect example of the importance of speed work. At a distance of 600 yards from the finish there was a small group of three runners. At 100 yards it was down to two runners and the finish line was in sight. The last 50 yards were a fast sprint like a 100 meter dash runner might do. Announcers mentioned how hard it is to sprint at full speed after running 26 miles. The legs are tired and to make them pick up the pace like a sprint is really hard on the leg muscles. (My experience with sprints after a marathon occurred in my first marathon. I wanted to break four hours and with less than a few hundred yards to go I had 15 minutes to run this distance. Not thinking very clear after 26 miles of running I thought I needed to sprint to run under four hours. I crossed the finish line and after a few steps my leg muscles all cramped. My friends leaned me against a pole to put my sweat pants on as I couldn’t bend my legs. They had to lift me up over curbs on the way back to the hotel.) When I watched the sprint between the two finishers all I could think about was they will need a good massage after the race.
While the race is one that most marathoners put on their ‘bucket list’ to run, it does require some serious training and being able to run a relatively fast time. The Boston Marathon is also a race for other groups. There is a wheel chair division that looking at the wheel chairs from the competitors is like watching a FS1 car race compared to a stock car race. The “chairs” were sleek, low to the ground, and as hi-tech as I have ever seen for a wheel chair. The winner of the push rim wheel chair won in one hour, 12 minutes. He was said to have put in approximately 230 miles a week preparing for the race. The Boston Marathon had hand crank wheel chairs and dual entrants also. The hand crank chairs had some entrants flat out on their back and a gear ratio some road bikes have. The dual entrants were for the disabled that could enter the race and have a person either pull or push them over the course. And, of course, there were the Wounded Warriors entrants that brought cheers from the spectators all along the race.
