A bunch of Kristian’s coworkers decided to sign up for the Boston Athletic Association 5K that’s part of the marathon festivities. He asked if I’d like to join them and I was like “you had me at ‘you get to run across the Boston Marathon finish line.'”
(They don’t let you finish on the marathon finish line, but you do get to run across it.)
(Technically, you could run across the finish line any old time, but that would involve dodging a lot of crazy traffic.)
My sister was kind enough to watch LJ for us, so we got to spend some quality time with each other… and the other 8,000 or so people running the race.
Seriously, I can’t remember a more crowded run. We waited for about 20-30 minutes at the back of the starting line (because we are, admittedly, very slow) after the race was supposed to start. We waited so long, in fact, that just as we crossed the starting line, I looked over and Kristian’s very fast co-worker was just finishing the race. He did finish in the top 100, but that is still an impressive wait.
Lucky for us, we still tend to enjoy each other’s still company, it was a beautiful day, and we weren’t paying our babysitter by the hour.
(We weren’t paying her anything at all, but I did pick her up a little something at the race expo afterwards.)
The course itself is great. If you’re reading this blog post because you’re googling the race to see if it’s worth the $50 race fee, let me tell you that yes, yes it is. It’s crowded, but well organized (I could have done with some more porto-potties, but I am pretty sure that could be said about every race in the history of running). The course itself is crazy flat, there are plenty of people out cheering, and you get to run across the Boston Marathon finish line and keep going.
(They do have to continuously announce that, if you want to take a picture at the finish line, to please move off to the side and not cause a backup.)
(Because there are apparently a lot of people out there with selfie sticks and no common sense.)
We spent a lot of time dodging walkers, which is kindof annoying, but also not all that hard because, seriously, if this course was any flatter it would be a map of pre-Aristotlean earth.
I did not set a PR, but I did beat Kristian by 12 seconds. Which, because the race is so enormous, was good enough for finishing about a hundred places ahead of him. This is about as close as I get to bragging rights when it comes to running.
(In case you’re new around here, I’m so slow my spirit animal would be a turtle if I wasn’t already a honey badger.)
(I should also probably mention that he didn’t really train for this one.)
Basically, I surge at the end of most races when I’m about a few hundred feet or so from the finish. I didn’t train as much as I should have for this one, but I did train more than Kristian and I can generally run farther than him. I told him I’d run most of the race with him, but once the end was in sight…. all bets were off. Remember how I said there weren’t really enough porto potties? Yeah, with about a quarter of a mile left I realized that I really wanted to finish and use one. Kristian basically looked up and I was gone.
(He still finished strong, and we got our race medals and t-shirts together.)
My sister told us to take our time and have fun, so we spent the morning chilling with Kristian’s coworkers, walking around Boston, and checking out the marathon expo. My sister may or may not have regretted her decision to give us the morning off. Especially when LJ started eating non-food items in protest of both her parents having the unmitigated gall to leave her with her beloved auntie for a few hours.
(Let’s just say it’s a good thing that my husband is good at googling things from his phone.)
(Because I had already called my sister to remind her that they should both be wearing sunblock, so I was clearly not in the most rational of moods.)
(And now we can all file “I ate part of the window!” under: things I never want to hear my toddler say when I get home.)
(We’re talking non-toxic stuff, not lead paint!)
(Brand new window, brand new sill.)
(Seriously, please don’t report us for this one.)
The race shirt is one of the nicest race shirts I’ve received, although that’s a pretty low bar these days. Unless it’s a tech shirt, I usually don’t even bother bringing one home. The medal is also pretty badass.
All in all, it was a pretty successful race!