This was my first Boston Marathon and things didn't go as well as I would have liked. Here's what I thought of it in 1993:

The race started at 12:00 noon 26.2 miles from downtown Boston in a town called Hopkinton. I got up at 7:15am and got ready. I took the T (trolley/subway) into the center of town from our hotel. busses would take us from the finish line to the starting line. It was a bright cool morning that promised to turn in into one of the best days for the marathon in the last ten years, partly cloudy, 55F and a tail wind.

The bus ride was about 45 minutes. People talked a bit and ate their fruit and drank water and electrolytes solutions. I was used to marathons that started earlier in the day, so I wasn't sure what to eat. I did know to avoid Power Bars that caused me pain in both the San Francisco Marathon and the California International Marathon. I settled for a couple of bagels, two bananas, a Gatorbar and some watered down Gatorade. I ate part of a bagel on the bus. It was only 9:30am so I had two and a half hours before the start.

The bus got to the Hopkinton Highschool that serves as a waiting area at about 9:45am. I began the first event of the day as soon as I got off the bus. I waited in line at the port-o-potties. The guy in front of me was from Missouri and running his second marathon. He had a shirt and baseball cap that was covered with written well wishes from all his friends back home.

I toured the grounds and took a lap through the highschool. There was no room left inside so I waited outside. When the wind didn't blow it was warm in the sun. I stretched, ate and drank until 10:50am. There was a big group from Japan with a banner saying Run Around the World. That part was in english, I don't know what the japanese writing said. The I took my next turn waiting in line at the port-o-potties. A few women and I discussed strategies for waiting in line. We all decided it was best to go to lines with the least amount of women, since we figured men should take less time. This theory did not stand up to testing as the three women I was speaking to we about the quickest in and out.

After my turn I found the bus where I could drop off my clothes. I was runner number 2009. There were about 7100 male runner (1900 female runners) and your number reflected your qualifying time. It took me a while to figure this out, but when I did I felt pretty good. At precisely 11:25am I stripped off my warm-up clothes and dropped them off in bus number four. I chose 11:25am because we were supposed to report to our starting chutes by 11:40am. It was a 0.7 mile walk from the highschool to the starting area. I began the walk (after a stop at the bushes behind the port-o-potties), but was so excited I jogged most of the way. The crowd at the start was tremendous. People of Hopkinton out to see it and the local business out to sell things. I almost bought a Marathon Muffin.

At the back of the pack were people who were going to bandit the race and run without a number. There were probably a few thousand. I was clueless and almost got into line with them before I heard a local police officer shouting instructions to people wit and without runner numbers. I moved up towards the front and found my spot. I was in a chute of runners with number between 2000 and 2499. I borrowed some vaseline from a guy next to me who was passing around his jar.

Seven helicopters circled above the crowd and a clock counted down the time to noon and the start of the race. The wheel chair marathoners went off at 11:45am. I couldn't see anything because of the 200 or so people in front of me and the hills.

Noon came and we went. It took me 1:27 to cross the starting line. Even if I hadn't noted it on my watch (which I started with the gun) everyone around me announced how long it had taken. The road was narrow and the pack didn't thin out for a long time. The first mile was about 11:30 and the crowd was still dense. I cut to the outside and started moving at a pace closer to the one I wanted.

The second mile was in the high six minutes per mile range. I kept this up for the next few miles until the crowd began to thin out. Then I made a hasty pit stop along the side of the road in the light forests that lined the road where people didn't. I got back in the race and kept up a good pace. I was making up time lost from the slow start each mile. Since I was less than two minutes from a seven minute per mile pace and I felt pretty good. At 10k I was 45:00 into the race.

There were people all along the race. Little kids were holding up orange slices and cups of water between the aid stations. Each time a runner would take something from the kids they would jump up and down, excited they'd helped someone along in the race. Kids who weren't holding anything up held up there hands to get high fives from runners along the edges of the road. We ran in and out of towns and though the more rural areas. There was never a place where there weren't people.

Things looked gut to ten miles. I was now about 1:11 out and only a minute off a seven minute per mile pace. the eleventh mile felt good too and I kept up my pace. As we ran out of the center of the town of Natick things started going wrong. My left knee started to hurt when going up hills. I slowed down until the pain went away and then started running faster. The pain came back as I got faster, it also stayed when I ran down hills. So I slowed down.

In a matter of minutes I was thinking of abandoning my seven minute pace and shooting for a 3:15 or 3:30 finishing time. As soon as the pain in my knee went away my right foot started hurting, or more probably the pain in my foot surpassed the pain in my knee. My foot had been cramping back at mile seven, but it had stopped as I relaxed a bit.

Now the nerve that was inflamed during my training was aggravated and hurting. I taken most of the week before the race off and worn only soft running shoes. My foot felt fine walking around, but now it was agony. I started thinking about the medical stations and dropping out of the race. Then I wondered if I would get a medal. Probably not, so I kept hobbling along. I was slow and by mile 12 I was two minutes off the pace I had set before. Each mile got worse.

The downhill before the halfway mark and the women of Wellesly College made up for some of the pain. They cheered the loudest of anyone so far on the course, I wondered how long it had been since they saw so many scantily clad men.

I made it to the half marathon point in 1:35. Not a bad pace, but I knew I was pretty much done. I was barely moving even though I was still running. Now I started thinking of a 3:30 or 3:45 finishing time. I felt so bad, but maybe some kind of miracle would save me. The miles were going too slowly and my slow pace limping stride weren't helping.

I felt as bad now as I had felt good in Chicago. During the last half there I saw the cushion I had built get smaller. Now I saw my time get slower and I had half way to go. I kept running at my slow pace and kept getting passed by thousands of runners. The people cheering both helped and hurt. I felt I was doing so badly, but I was still there and still moving forward.

My family and friends were waiting at mile 21, and expecting me at 2:27, my seven minute pace. I knew that was out of the question but I though that I could get there within 10 or 20 minutes of that. I was at mile 17 and about 2:15 into the race. I hit the wall there. On top of everything else I now had the burning and near cramping state in all my muscles from my heels to my back. But I was still running. Then I ran into Heartbreak Hill at mile 20.

Heartbreak Hill isn't that steep of a hill, but it is at mile 20 and pretty steep and long. But the worst thing is that it's not just one hill, but a grueling series of hills that tricks you by letting you think you've made it and crushing you on the next rise. I made it up the first long hill and was happy to be on flat land. I was still running but looking directly at the ground in front of me. I didn't see the nest part until I started upwards. I still kept moving my feet like I was running. I made it halfway up that hill before a guy who was walking passed me. That was the last straw and I couldn't take it. I started walking.

Fortunately my friends and family were around mile 22 and I was running when they saw me. I felt pretty miserable I was over 30 minutes off what I had told them. And knew I couldn't run for the rest of the race. Eight miles seemed like a very long walk.

The rest of the race is a blur. I tried to run at 23 miles to keep my time under four hours, but only did a ten minute mile and died at 24. I walked until I had 1.5 miles left. I wanted to have enough that I could cross the finish line running.

The crowds were still large and loud even at the four hour mark. I would have liked to see them an hour before though. I finished at about 4:04. After I got through the finishing chutes I looked for my medal. In the past they give it to right away. This time I didn't see one. I started thinking that they only gave them to the first 5000 runners and that I had gone through the last 13 miles of hell for nothing. Then I heard a marathon worker saying Water and medals this way. So I got my medal, the first of many I hope.

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