Reminder: We are on for a group trail run tomorrow morning 5:17 AM. Phoenix Mountain Preserve. Meet at the very top lot of Squaw Peak Drive North of Glendale Ave. Plan on a little over one hour. A great trail run with a sunrise. Don’t miss out.
Runner of the Week: Last week it was ROW runner up. This week it’s top ROW. 7 days after finishing the Zane Grey 50 mile trail race Candice continues to impress with a 1st place finish in her age group at the Whiskey Row Marathon on Saturday. Other notable Whiskey participants: Rachel Jones 2nd in age group; Nick Coury 6th overall (1st in age group); Nathan ½ marathon participant.A belated congratulations to Dave Cauthon for his great Boston Marathon Run April 19th. Check out his race report in the comments section of this post.
Bonus Coverage: For your triathlon fix. Congrats to Latvaaho (who seems to get farther away ultra runs) on his 32nd overall finish at Wild Flower Tri in California. That is a great finish in a huge field. McCarville finished 12th in has age group. Randy Ohlinger finished only 7 min back form Kirk. Great job you three. We’ll see you back on the trails.
Saturday Reminder: Don’t forget to come out for an hour run Saturday morning and meet the author of the just released book “Born to Run”. Meet at Dreamy Draw Park Parking lot (Northern Ave and SR-51) 7:00 AM.
2 comments:
Dave Cauthon's Boston Marathon Race Report:
I know this is long overdue, but let me start by saying that I have only had time to run 12 miles in the past 11 days. I've had so many exams and other things with school that everything else has been pushed to the side.
I had never been to Boston and I have rarely been to the east coast so I was really hoping to make this a longer trip but it was tough even getting away for 4 days. Robert Huotari did us a huge favor by giving us a ride to the airport at 3:30am on Saturday so we could catch our 5am flight! Kim and I knew that we did not want to drive in Boston so after meeting our friend, Patty, at the Boston airport, we caught a cab to our hotel. Right away you could tell what this city puts into this race. There were banners in the airport, and along light poles with pictures from past races.
Sunday we had to go to the expo which we had heard was a madhouse on Saturday. We walked a few blocks from our hotel and purchased tickets on the Old Town Trolley Tour, which made a giant loop around the city and conveniently stopped right at the expo site. At the expo we were able to get in, get my bib number, buy a few necessities as well as my official overpriced race jacket, and get out fairly quickly. We spent the rest of the day riding the trolley, getting off every so often to eat or snap pictures.
You would think with a race start time of 10am that I would get to sleep in on Monday but we were supposed to catch the bus to the start between 6am and 6:45am. Wave 2 would catch their bus between 6:45 and 7:30, so we decided to shoot for 6:45. I met my friend Dean near the line of buses at 6:45. Fortunately this was a very short walk from my hotel. Also fortunately for someone who gets lost as easily as I do, I just had to walk out the front door and follow the trail of people! The process of loading these buses was like nothing I have ever seen. There was a line of buses as far forward and backward as I could see, maybe a half-mile or so in either direction. After those buses were loaded with the people in front of us, they drove off and another string pulled in, and then the whole thing happened again, and again, and then we finally got on a bus.
The buses drove us for what seemed like 50 miles and dropped us off at this school which was turned into the "athletes village". There were definitely not enough porta-johns in this village as we spent our entire time waiting in line. As the mass of people started moving in one direction we took our cue to follow. We were able to squeeze into our corral just in time. The elite women had already started. And then, bang, we were off! Or so they told us. It would be over 3 minutes before I crossed the starting line.
I had looked at the course maps and elevations earlier in the week so I knew what to expect. Others either didn't, or got caught up in the excitement, because there were a lot of people sprinting those first 3 miles of downhills. I settled into my 7:05 to 7:15 pace and hit them pretty consistently until... I'll get to that later. One of the first things I noticed was how many fluid stations there were. There would be one on the right side of the road, then 0.25 miles later one on the left side of the road, then less than 2 miles later another set. Like most runners on that cool morning, I didn't stop at many of them.
I had been told about the crowd of spectators by several people ahead of time, but until you're there you really can't fathom it. There was a solid wall of people on both sides of the road for almost the entire course. There were people that had giant scoreboards with the current score of the Red Sox - Orioles game (12 to 1 final Red Sox) There were people that had a giant red EASY button made from duct tape. There was a group of partyers at mile 20 that was giving away free beer through a funnel. The guy beside me took them up on that. I'm pretty sure he regretted that later.
But the kicker has to be the Wellesley girls at mile 12. At mile 11, Adidas had put up signs saying "Prepare your ears" and "Get ready for the scream". A full 0.75 miles before I got to them, I could hear them. Most of the girls were holding posters or wearing shirts that said "Kiss me" or "Kiss me, I'm a freshman" or my favorite "Kiss me, I'm blonde" The guy beside me took several of them up on their offers. I'm pretty sure he did not regret that later.
Mile 15, my split ready 7:46 and after that I was never able to hit another 7:15. I made it up heartbreak hill at mile 21 just fine. At this point I was averaging around 8:00 miles. But shortly after that my quads began to cramp. The elevation map looks mainly downhill after heartbreak hill, but it lies! Every little uphill was painful. By the time that I hit the second turn in the course after mile 25, I was struggling. I ended up finishing in 3:19:06, with the clock saying 3:22:09.
After crossing the finish line and walking for a long way to get my foil heat blanket, my medal and my bag o' food, I realized how cold it was. After stopping at the porta-john, I walked even farther to get to the bus that had my gear bag. 23,000 runners, 500 bags per bus = 46 buses of gear bags. While waiting in line at the gear bus, I was crouched over with my forearms on my thighs, feeling kind of nauseous. I look over and the guy right next to me is in the same exact position, and then BLEH!, he pukes all over the road. As I'm crouching there looking at him, my first thought was "wow, I bet he feels better". And then I see his gastroc muscle cramp and he would have fallen over if the two guys behind him didn't catch him and throw him in a wheelchair.
After finding Kim, Patty, Dean and Diane at the meeting place, the walk back to the hotel was not bad at all, even though it was fairly cold. The rough part was that we weren't staying at that hotel that night and we had to grab our stuff and jump in a taxi to a new hotel at the airport.
Since I was not able to re-qualify there, I don't have plans to go back next year. Someday. Dave
Great Report Dave!! Congrats!! Higg
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