As the race drew near, I did start to dread it mostly because it was the morning after my daughter's first dance recital. Unfortunately, this most likely means I won't be able to run it again because her dance recital will always be the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and so won't this race. All the more reason that I took the time to really enjoy this one.
Some friends and I reserved a hotel room in Boston for the night before the race. We stayed at the very nice Marriot TownPlace Suites Boston. I hit the road around 9pm and there was hardly anyone on it because of the holiday weekend. In fact, the entire city of Boston was pretty deserted so it was the easy ride in ever.
Staying at a hotel definitely had its perks - we didn't have to wake up nearly as early as we would have to make an hours drive for a 7 am start. We had plenty of time to use the bathroom, stretch and roam around the Trade Center. There were a TON of porta-potties outside of Trade Center and they were wonderfully clean too. What we didn't have time for was using the bathroom again in the last 20 minutes before the race because it was nearly impossible to get out of the convention center at that point. With over 11,000 runners it was wall-to-wall people by that point. I was thankful to only be running 5 miles. There were porta-potties on the course so around mile 2.5 near The Boston Common I stopped to use one. Again, I wasn't really worried about time for this race.
I used this race to just really enjoy the art of running. After snapping a few photos I settled into my pace, albeit a little
It was only in the 50's and about 30 degrees cooler than the day before, but the cool weather just made for an easier run. The wind afterwards? Not so much fun, but again I just went into the Trade Center to wait for my friends who ran the half.
All in all, it was a great race with some great swag in the best city in the world - Boston.
