Dead
Runners society race
report
99th BAA Boston Marathon - Monday 17th April 1995
Over the pond for the first time to run
in the world's greatest marathon and get to meet some Dead
Runners.
Morning all
10th April 1994 -
Canberra marathon, australia. I crossed the finish line in
a new pb of 3h09.02 and almost
immediately thought "great i've qualified for Boston".
11th April 1995. I
got up early to jog a couple of miles through the park by my house, as I ran over the footbridge into the park
I saw all the morning rush hour
traffic as people drove into work in Warrington and thought "that's
not for me today, I'm off to Boston
:-)" Shower, breakfast and last minute packing then my brother came to drive me to the airport.
Flew from Manchester to London
and then from London to Boston. In the queue to get through customs
I met england's best lady marathoner,
Yvonne Danson (3rd in Commonwealth Games marathon 1994), I said hello and wished her luck for her
run. She had someone from the
BAA waiting for her to take her to the elite runners hotel, I had
something better, someone from DRS
:-) Pinar arrived and drove me off to her home, I was going to stay with her and her husband Selim
for 3 days. After some american
food and turkish tea (very nice) and a post to DRS to say I had
arrived off to sleep as it had been a
loooong day zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
12th April. 3 miles
nice and easy with Pinar along Dorchester Bay before I went
to see the sights of Boston and Pinar
and Selim went to work. I went up to the top of the Hancock tower and admired the view and wrote
some postcards, there was an
interesting exhibit at the top of the tower showing Boston in 1775 and
how we british were kicked out of the
american colonies, I was to see a lot of this stuff over the next few days :-( :-) Then off to
"Cheers" just to say I'd been
there, I didn't have to queue to get in, I bought some Cheers souvenirs
for my family. I also ate my first bagels today, yum yum :-)
Wonderful stuff, I thought about
trying to smuggle some out of the country when I left :-)
13th April. 3 more
miles with Pinar in the morning, feeling a bit better now
as I was slowly getting unjetlagged.
Off to do some more sightseeing and shopping before going back chez Pinar to watch some
american TV, the news seemed to consist of nothing but the OJ Simpson trial, maybe
there is a special OJ cable
channel? :-)
14th April. Last run
with Pinar (before the marathon), the best run since I arrived in Boston. Pinar and Selim went to look at some
new houses and they kindly
dropped me off in the centre of Boston near the Copley Square hotel, my
home for the next 4 days where I was
going to meet California's running guru and DRS
member George Parrott.
to be
continued.......
Afternoon all
14th April pm.
At the end of part 1
I had just arrived at the Copley Square Hotel, George Parrott had emailed me via Pinar telling me of his
arrival time. I went down to the
lobby and there he was, nice to finally meet him at last. I also met
George's SO Chris (fastest drs lady
marathoner) and the rest of herd from the Buffalo Chips :-) I went out for a meal with George
and some of the Chips to a Texan
restaurant, the food was very good and in huge proportions but
a bit spicy for my refined british
palate :-) so I had some fish and chips instead of some ribs. I'd certainly enjoyed the food in
america so far :-)
15th April.
Up nice and early for
a run, cold and sunny with a strong wind which is in "right" direction for the marathon. Loads of runners
about, more runners than people
:-) I jogged down to Boston Public Garden, ran a lap and jogged back,
2 easy miles. Off to the expo to pick
up my number and to have a look round. I met Tom Derderian and had a nice chat with him, he
signed my copy of his Boston
Marathon book. I didn't spend too much time at the expo as I didn't
want to melt my credit card and I had
to get off to meet Dipesh for the CPS Boston Tour. Unfortunately I hadn't seen Dipesh's
message saying that the tour had
been put back and hour so I ended up hanging around for a bit then
going off to do a bit more
shopping. In the evening off to
the Boston Marathon Encounter Dinner at the old Spaghetti
Factory to meet more dead runners
than I'd met in my life. I met loads of deads including Doug
Dodds, Dick Duggan, both parts of Team Kail, Matt Sissman, Scott
Larcher, Dipesh Navsaria, Josh
Knight, Alejandro Munoz, Adrienne Forsyth, Paul Tranchmontagne, both Krasnors, Allan Rubé, Claude
Sequiera and many more, apologies to anyone I've forgotten. The whole thing was
organised by the wonderful
Reenie Casey. There was loads of lasagne and ravioli to eat, we
reckoned that the guy serving us
looked like Kramer from Seinfeld, so that's what he does for a living :-) I took loads of
embarrassing photos hopefully these should appear in the picture archives in the
fullness of time. What an
evening, you people really do exist after all :-)
16th April
Up early again and
off to run in Cambridge, this was my second run in Cambridge
in 10 days, the previous run was in
Cambridge England and I ran by the river Cam, this time I was running along the Charles River. I
met up with a bunch of deads by
Cambridge Common, not too many compared to last night but it was a
rather cold morning. We jogged down
through Harvard Square to the river, Doug Dodds was in the lead and Reenie was at the back, 3.5
miles nice and easy with a few
deads including the man who ran with Mike Kail's number in the race.
A very pleasant run if a bit cold,
still we "tough stoic calloused" brits are used to this :-) Something important in the "kicking the
british out" history happened
around here as some horseshoe prints are embedded in the ground in
Cambridge, OK OK I get the picture,
you won and we lost :-) Then off
to Robert Nagle's house for the Bagel Bash, yum yum. Doug Dodds drove
me there, loads of bagels and other
"goomies" to eat and drink. Robert had 2 video recorders and tv's running showing tapes of old
boston marathons. Met some
more deads and it was very nice to
meet Annie Wynn again, I met her at my first big DRS encounter at the Ironbridge half marathon in
1993 when she was on holiday
over this side of the pond. Many bagels and embarrassing photographs
later it was time to go, I
walked to the T stop with a few deads including Debbie Beatrice. In the evening I had a nice pasta
loading meal with the Chips in
the hotel, tomorrow would be the big day.
to be
continued....
Morning deads
17th April 1995 -
race day
I'd set my alarm for
7.00am but I was awake before that, this was it. Got up and washed/dressed and joined the queue for breakfast
then off with the Chips on the
big yellow bus for Hopkinton. As we headed inland the wind still
appeared to be a tailwind although the weather forecast said
there could be a headwind off the sea in Boston. We arrived in plenty of time
and the waiting began. I sat in
the gym and read a book then I met another englishman and had a chat
with him before I finally found the rest of the deads
by the water tower, yes Debbie I
was nervous! I dumped my bag on the baggage bus and walked down to the
start and into the blue numbered
runners pen, I was impressed with this, it made sure all the slower runners were behind me. Josh Knight was
there and I had a chat with him
before throwing away an old sweatshirt and pair of tracksters and
lining up. Before the start someone
sang the US national anthem, I waited for them to sing my national anthem but they musn't have
known I was there, presumably
they knew Ndeti was there but they saved the Kenyan anthem for the
finish :-)
Bang and off we
shuffled, good luck Josh and we slowly started moving forward,
it was a nice cool sunny day but what
wind there was was now a gentle crosswind :-( 90s to cross the start line, after a few minutes I
passed Pinar and I wished
her luck, I liked the "Gump 1h57"
sign :-) 10 minutes for first mile but I was going well by then. I cruised along at 7.0x pace down
the hills for the first few
miles, gradually working my way through. 5 miles in 38.01, I was on
schedule to break 3h09 but I knew
that there was a long way to go. Kept going at 7.0x pace to 10 miles (1h13.25), feeling reasonably
good but I knew the hills were
waiting, the crowd support was as good as I'd experienced in other
big city marathons and once the pack
had thinned out getting drinks wasn't too bad. I knew what was coming though, a bit tired by 11
miles, I was looking for Annie
Wynn and the DRS cheering section around here but I didn't see her. 12.5
miles Wellesley College :-) Wow, what
a noise as I ran past, I've never heard anything like that in my running career, the noise level
seemed to double around here.
Halfway in 1h35.39, it would take a negative split to get me a new
pb from here, starting to feel a bit
tired by now, I wanted the hills to come before I got too tired. 15 miles in 1h49.29, a fast
downhill mile to 16 miles and
the start of the Newton Hills. First hill wasn't too bad, I knew there were
4 to come over the next 5 miles, pace
dropped to 7.4x up the hills. In the hills I saw a spectator in a DRS shirt, I waved to him
and he waved back, I also saw
Annie and co putting up the DRS
sign but unfortunately they didn't see me :-( Pretty tired over the next few miles, arounnd 18 miles I heard
on a spectators radio that Ndeti
had just finished and I had over 8 miles left :-( Mile 20 took over
8 minutes as I started up Heartbreak
Hill. 20 miles in 2h28.12, it was really tough to keep running over the top of HH but I toughed
it out, there were a few walking
up the hill by now. (When I got home I watched the Eurosport coverage
of Boston and Uta looked pretty
wobbly over HH as well which was some comfort). 21 miles in 2h36.28 which was over 6 minutes behind
schedule, I decided to jog in
from here and forget about a time. I was pretty tired by now, every marathon I've run has
had a point where I've wanted to
stop and this point was a few miles behind me now, still I kept
plodding on, still passing a few but
more were passing me now :-( 22 miles I could see the Hancock Tower in the distance as we came
down off the hills, by now the
headwind off the sea had arrived and in spite of the bright sunshine I
was getting a bit chilly in places
:-( 25th mile took 8.30, 25 mile split was 3h09.35, slower than my best marathon time. Still I knew
where I was now, plodded looking
out for the right turn, it came and then left into Boylston
street. I speeded up a little and
managed a wave to the crowd before finally crossing the line in 3h19.36.
Very tired on
finished and rather disappointed with my time, I'd come all this
way and finished 10 minutes down on
last years time :-( Through the finish area, medal, blanket, an official asked if I wanted a
wheelchair but I wasn't that bad! I trudged on drinking everything they gave me round
Copley Square until I found my
baggage bus. Off with the blanket and on with the rainsuit top,
I shook hands with a couple of race
officials and said thanks, they said congratulations, for what? Out of the finish area 20
minutes after crossing the line,
there was Buffalo Chips dead Bruce Aldrich who had had a much better
run than I had. 1 minute later I was
in the Copley Square Hotel (thanks George) and someone noted my time for the hotel's "guess your
time" competition, into the lift
(elevator) and 5 minutes later I was in the shower, aaaahhhh.
to be
concluded....
Afternoon all
Here's the last part
of my adventures in Boston.
17th April pm
Just finished the
race and staggered to the hotel (very close to the finish
line :-)). After a nice long hot
shower and eating a bagel I almost felt like a human being again. From my hotel bedroom window I could
still see the stragglers
coming in down Boylston Street. At
about 6.00pm down in the lift (elevator) to the Chips post race happy hour and race excuses get
together, I watched the race on
the TV news, Cosmas looked pretty impressive but Uta appeared to
be human, she had suffered to finish
like the rest of us. The TV news also showed a re-enactment of a "kicking the british out"
battle which took place on this
day all those years ago, I had to turn away from the TV for that :-)
Then we all staggered
over to Legal Seafoods for our post race meal, the restaurant was full of runners. More wonderful food and
post-race chat, I ended up
chatting to some of the Chips lady runners about british TV comedy. About
8.30pm we headed back to the hotel,
we saw a runner wearing a space blanket in the Prudential Centre, he must have been out there for a
loooooong time.
18th April
Staggered out of bed,
ouch my legs hurt. Put some running gear on and tried to do some stretching but
my legs weren't too keen. Then headed off for a 2 mile very slow run. Didn't feel too good at the start but I
was moving a bit more freely by
the Public Garden, had a last look at "Cheers" before jogging back.
Went out for a last walk round
Boston, picked up some entry forms for Boston '96 and
found a british owned book shop (they don't get rid of us that easily :-))
and bought some books for the return
flight. Felt a bit easier for the walk and finished off packing before heading off to the airport
with George and the Chips. Said
my goodbyes at the airport, thanks again George, it was great to
see you. I had about 7 hours to wait
for my flight but I reckoned that 7 hours in a comfy chair would be better than a bit more
sightseeing with the state of my
legs. At the airport I met
Yvonne Danson (see part 1) who had the best performance of
the 63 british runners in the
marathon. She finished 5th in 2h30, a new pb for her and the fastest ladies marathon time by a british
lady this year. I had a nice
chat with her and Gordon Surtees (UK national marathon coach), she was
very tired as well, even elite
runners get tired in marathons, they are mortal just like us.
Eventually it was
time to fly home, I didn't manage to get any sleep on the
plane so it was a very tired and
stiff-legged runner who arrived home. It had been a great week (apart from the last hour of the
marathon), I'm thinking about an
autumn marathon now to try and qualify for next year. Hopefully part 5 of
this story will appear in about 1
year from now.
bye
carpe Boston
tony "1995 BAA
Boston marathon finisher" bell
--
tony
bell A.M.T.Bell@dl.ac.uk
crystallographer and marathon
runner (but not necessarily in that order :-)) engineering and physical science research council
daresbury laboratory, daresbury,
warrington, cheshire, UK. WA4 4AD
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