The weekend that wasn't????
Going in to the weekend I was very excited to get the opportunity to run the Boston Marathon. I know that it has been around for a long time (113 years) and won't be going anywhere, anytime soon, but it has been a goal of mine to race in Boston. With that being said...
Kylee and I started out Friday night after work leaving the kids behind due to illness. It sucked b/c this was going to be our first "family" vacation/getaway with the kids, but with
Brynleigh and Myles both fighting what I would eventually get, we left them with grandma and grandpa for the
weekend. We stopped for dinner at about 8:00 just on the other side of Cleveland at an
Applebees, which we proceeded to talk about how much we missed the kids already and how weird it was to be able to eat a meal without picking food up off the floor or cleaning up messes. Those with kids understand. After supper we drove another couple of hours until we got to Clarion, PA, where we checked into our hotel for the evening.
After a brief 6-7 hours of well needed/non-kid-
interrupted sleep we got up b/c I couldn't wait to get on the road. We made great time from Clarion-Boston and arrived a little after 3:00 on Sat. afternoon. Once we checked in, we
immediately took public transportation down to the
Hynes Convention Center for packet pick-up. We then walked around the downtown area looking for some food. After not having too much success in finding what we wanted to eat we decided to go back to the hotel and order pizza from "
The Upper Crust" very good food had I been feeling up to eating it.
This was the start to me not feeling well. I had two bites of pizza and a couple of bites of Cesar salad, took a shower covered our bed with multiple blankets due to my decreasing/rising body temp. depending on the min. I was up a couple of times throughout the night to use the restroom, as things were not staying in me very long.
About 6 a.m Sunday,
Kylee and I got up so she could get ready for the
5k. I had a granola bar and a cup of coffee, hoping to settle my stomach, but by the time we got downtown for the 5k I was in dire need of a Port-o-john. I did my
pre-race while she warmed up, then I was able to watch her race- 21:37 and she was battling through a crowed field the entire time. Not what she had wanted, but considering illness for two weeks, she ran very well.
After the race we went back to the hotel, got cleaned up, checked out, and then drove back downtown for church at
St. Cecilia's Parish, as we were coming in, I saw Allen
Hemmelgarn from St. Henry, OH coming out of the 9:30 mass at the same church. He would be running the next day(2:48 and some change, nice job Allen). From Church we went and got some lunch, of which I had a bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup. This whole time,
Kylee keeps telling me that it is nerves and I'm not getting sick. I'm eating Tums/
Rolaids like their tic-
tacs!!!
After lunch we checked in to our
hotel for Sunday night since it was a little bit closer to the finish line.
The Hotel Commonwealth lived up to every bit of the price we paid for it, but it is too bad that I had to mess their bathroom as bad as I did. From check-in at two-o'clock on Sunday until 5:30 Monday Race Morning, the only time I was out of bed was to go use the restroom. Unfortunately that was about every 20-40 minutes. The frequency of my bowel movements was so often that on Monday morning I was very dehydrated and had severe cotton mouth. As much as I wanted to race, I knew that it was probably not a safe thing to do entering in to the race dehydrated???? At the point of deciding not to run, we packed up shop and got on the road home. As much as I wanted to see
Goucher and Hall contend for a title, it would have hurt to much to know that I should have been running that day. We hit the road by 6:30 Monday morning and we arrived back in
VW by 8:00 p.m. early enough to tuck the kids in to bed.
Options from here:
1) race Glass City Marathon on Sun.
2)take time off to mentally recover from this let down
3) refocus on running fast in Alaska
I've
actually decided that I will try to run fast in Alaska on June 20. I will also not be running a whole lot between today and May 1 as originally planned. Although I know I'm fit and could run well this weekend in Toledo (possibly score some $$$) I don't think mentally I want to race. The goal was to run fast in Boston, not Toledo. Did I waste a taper? Maybe? I will deal with that in my own way.
Alaska Watch Out! 114
th Boston Marathon 2010 is already on the racing schedule for next year, because I have some unfinished business to take care of in
Bean-town.