Yikes...looks like I’ve been a tad AWOL on the blogging front. Well, I’m getting ready to head to Boston this weekend for the 2012 Run to Home Base (this year, they’ve added a three-mile walk, so it’s officially the 2012 Run-Walk to Home Base), so I really should bring you up to date first, since that race will, of course, need its own blog entry. I already can’t wait to write it!
April brought the first road race for me since the Lowell 1st Run on New Year’s Day, and what an amazing spring race indeed: the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) 5k, held the morning before the Boston Marathon. It’s like having all the best of the Marathon (hello, shopping at the expo!!!), but without the 23.1-mile warmup. (Naturally, I fit in a wee bit o’ cocktailing at Legal Seafoods Harborside...I don’t imagine the marathoners were able to do that.) The BAA 5k features my favorite 5k course as it winds through Back Bay, up one thankfully short moderate hill on Park Street, then down a positively glorious long, gentle downhill on Beacon Street between the state house and the 54th Massachusetts/Robert Gould Shaw memorial (one of my favorite landmarks in Boston), then back along Arlington Street and tree-lined Comm Ave, and after turning left onto Hereford, it becomes identical to the end of the Boston Marathon (“left onto Boylston”). My familiarity with all of these streets made this race as comfortable as the ones I’ve run in Saratoga Springs, but with much closer proximity to Fenway Park, which makes everything better, in my book. I jumped at the chance to run the BAA 5k, since it is (barring a miracle) likely the only way I’ll ever get to cross the finish line of the Boston Marathon in an actual race.
The race was also an opportunity for a road trip with Las Bitchitas, as I stayed with friends in Attleboro and their brood of hounds, including the apparently lovestruck yellow lab, Cooper. Race day involved meeting up with my New England running buddies and turning some Facebook friends into the IRL variety. Spring continued winter’s bipolar disorder by providing what ended up being unseasonably warm temperatures—great for us running that morning! (For those intrepid souls running the Boston Marathon the next day—and starting their race significantly later in the morning than we began ours—not so great for grinding out 26.2mi; kudos to the Boston Marathon race director, organizers, volunteers, and everyone who helped keep the marathoners from overheating on the course!)
As we started the race from Copley Square and headed toward Boston Common, I saw two blind runners with their escorts—one runner literally tied with a short length of rope to his escort, the other holding her escort’s arm—and wondered at the courage it takes to run when you literally cannot see the course or terrain. I was so awed, I didn’t even mind that they totally smoked past me on Tremont Street. Turning onto Park Street, I had mentally prepared myself for the first and only hill of the race, willing myself to the top. Turning onto Beacon Street and beginning the long, steady downhill, we followed the direction in which Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the men of his 54th Infantry perpetually extend their bronze gaze, until we reached Arlington and turned toward Comm Ave. Turning from Beacon to Arlington, I had to slow briefly to a walk for the first of many short run/walk intervals to get me the full distance. All along the way, I did my usual shout-outs to the BPD officers on traffic patrol who were keeping us safe at the intersections, and at one point, passing a pair of bike-mounted Boston EMTs on Comm Ave, I briefly inquired as to the possibility of hitching a ride to the finish line. The male paramedic’s smiling response? “What’s it worth to you?” Hmmm. I pondered that question for about a block (did I mention he was kinda hawt? oh, and probably 15-20 years my junior?), but since we were probably only about four or five blocks from Hereford, I knew I’d much rather finish the race under my own steam.
As I turned and slowed to a walk along Hereford, I convinced myself that, come hell or high water, I would start running again as I turned onto Boylston Street and wouldn’t consider stopping until I was across the finish line. A woman on her third-floor balcony on Hereford cheered us on, so I shouted up to her, “Come join us! But don’t jump!” As we rounded the final corner onto Boylston, one of the race folks, with a bullhorn, joked with us and gave us some encouragement.
If you learn nothing else from being one of the slower runners in a 5k, it’s that the real party is in the middle and back of the pack. The front-runners and speedsters are focused first and foremost on their race performance; those of us around my pace are in it for the exercise, the experience, the fun, the T-shirt and the finisher’s medal. Decent post-race grub is always a plus.
We’re not here for the party...we are the party.
As we got closer to the finish line, around the final tenth of a mile, there were a lot more spectators lining the street (still nothing even remotely like what it would be for the next day’s marathon). As they politely applauded and cheered us on, I stretched out both arms and jokingly shouted, “All of this...for me?!?!?” and they responded with louder cheers. I’ll confess I milked it (What, YOU, Gingah? Naw...) by putting my hand to my ear and saying, “What was that? I can’t hear you!” first to one side of Boylston, then to the other. They kindly obliged me with louder cheers and I kicked in the afterburners...which got me about 50 yards before I had to slow my trot a little bit. In front of the bleachers, a woman was holding a sign cheering on a runner named Joan, and I pointed and shouted, “Hey! MY name is Joan!” Thus began a bucket-brigade of individual “Go, Joan!” cheers from the southern side of Boylston Street.
Thanks, EMT Bike Dude, I’ll take this any day.
As always, I love that dirty water...Boston, you’re my (heart’s) home!!!
PS: Here’s an update on the 2012 Run to Home Base: Thanks to so many incredibly generous folks, I actually exceeded my fundraising total from last year! I’m so grateful and so humbled to be involved in this cause. In my next post, I’ll include an image of the sign I’ll be wearing on my back during the R2HB. And since just over a week before the race, I ran SIX FULL MILES for the first time in my entire life, I am eager to get back to my favorite American city and put my running shoes onto her pavement. To Boston’s Finest, Boston’s Bravest, and the R2HB race volunteers...prepare to be copiously and enthusiastically thanked by La Gingah! MWAH!
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