Mike's Marathon Blog

I wanted to add something a little different to my summer exercise schedule. I’m so sick of running the same 5-mile route. Right out of my house, past Andover CC, to the set of lights and back. I’ve lived in my condo for over 3 years and I’ve probably done this 5-mile route over 150 times. It’s mind-numbing at this point. I can do it once per week, but that’s it! I suffer through the route every Tuesday, but I needed a change for Thursdays. I wanted to add some interval training into my routine, so this was the perfect opportunity.

I researched a few different workouts and settled on 800’s. There are 2 other interval training exercises that I will eventually wiggle into the the schedule, but first things first. One of the main reasons I decided to do 800’s is because it’s completely different than jogging a few miles. Most importantly, you don’t even run on the road. You run on the track! 800’s, to my understanding, are 2 fast laps and then 1 slow lap. Each lap around a track is 1/4 mile. For this exercise, you sprint 2 laps (1/2 mile) and then slow jog for a lap (1/4 mile).

One of the biggest reasons for interval training and speed-work is to obviously increase your speed and decrease your race finish times. I honestly do not care about either. I wanted a change of scenery, a change of pace and a different exercise to do some leg strengthening. I’ve done the 800’s three times now and so far, so good. They are tough. It’s a lot different than a nice, easy 5-mile jog around the neighborhood, let me tell you. Just ask Jacky, who decided to join me on the track. She puked.

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I don’t typically laugh out loud when I’m running, but today I couldn’t help it. Since I will be away for the weekend attending a wedding (congrats Ben & Sarah!), I had to do my long run after work today. Not the first thing on my ‘to do list’ on a Friday afternoon, but it had to be done. I missed my Thursday track session because I was golfing, so skipping my long run was completely out of the question.

I just want to tell you real quick what I had for dinner on Thursday night. I play in a golf tournament every month with my dad and 2 uncles. The tournament on Thursday ended with one of the best dinner buffets that I’ve seen in quite some time. And after a scorching 98, I needed some good eats. Here’s what I had on 1 plate: a caesar salad, 1 roll, grilled squash and zucchini, a generous helping of mashed potatoes with peppers, bacon and sour cream, 2 baked stuffed shrimp and an enormous piece of prime rib with hollandaise sauce. Oh and I washed all that down with a piece of Oreo pie and a piece of banana cream pie. I don’t know how I drove home.

Anyway, back to my run today. So I’m around mile 6 of 10. I’m running up this enormous hill when I see this lady coming towards me. She catches my attention because she is wearing the brightest red t-shirt I’ve ever seen. As we get closer and closer, I notice her smile. She is smiling like she just won Powerball. Seriously, her smile is taking up the entire sidewalk. After a few more strides, I can see she is an Asian lady, around 35, and has a mouthful of braces. She’s just walking, smiling and staring at me! She won’t stop. No blinking, just smiling. So here’s the Asian lady, walking towards me with a bright red shirt on, smiling ear to ear and teeth covered in medal. I’m already kind of laughing in my head at this point. As we pass each other, I read her shirt. This is when I burst out laughing. Across the chest of her fluorescent red shirt in giant white letters was ‘BRACES ROCK.’

True story.

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My goal this weekend was to get some rest. I didn’t get very much sleep this week and when I say I didn’t get much sleep, that means I barely slept at all. I really don’t know how many hours I actually sleep in a given night. I go to bed at an average time and I wake up at 6:30, but the reason for the lack of shut-eye in between is still a mystery. I wake up anywhere between 5-10 times per night. And these aren’t 1 minute awakenings to roll over or something like that. I wake up and it takes me at least 20 minutes to get back to sleep. I also have the bladder of either a 2-month-old puppy or an 85-year-old man with a prostate the size of a grapefruit.

Friday night I actually stayed in, got some take-out and watched TV. Unfortunately I am a Bruins fan, so it was not a very relaxing evening. It is still too soon for me to speak about the game (or series) we don’t speak of, so I will quickly move on. Friday was not a very ‘calorie-friendly’ night either. Do most people eat a Chipotle chicken burrito followed by a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Milk & Cookies ice cream in one sitting? Well you know what!? That’s what the biggest collapse in sports history will do to a person!! Ok. Stop. I apologize. I will move on, again.

Saturday morning I was up bright and early and headed to my parent’s house to get my bike ready for the 2010 season. I live in a condo, so anything that doesn’t fit here, goes into my parent’s garage or my old bedroom. They don’t mind. They got to watch the granddog while I went for a ride. Yes, I said granddog.

I picked up my friend Harry and headed to the Nashua River Rail Trail. If you’re a runner, biker, rollerblader, etc. and you’ve never been to this trail, definitely check it out! It’s an old railroad track that’s been paved over and travels about 12 miles from Nashua to Ayer. It’s a nice, flat ride and most importantly, you don’t have to worry about getting run over by any cars. Now that I’m running NYC, I need to be in ‘caution’ mode again. No major injuries before November and getting hit by a car is definitely on that list.

I spent Saturday night solo since Jack went out with some friends. And what do most guys do when their wife goes out for the night? I went to dinner and a play by myself. I went to dinner by myself and then to a play……….by myself! I typically go to the movies alone, so it wasn’t completely out of the ordinary. My cousin is the choreographer of a play in Nashua and last night was the only night I had free. I was hungry, so I grabbed some dinner beforehand. The play was amazing! It was seriously one of the best plays that I’ve ever seen (not that I’m a play expert or anything). If anyone is looking for something to do next weekend, go check out The Wedding Singer. http://www.peacockplayers.org/

Today I ran 10+ miles. This is my new summer weekend routine. Bike on Saturdays and long runs on Sundays. I will continue this schedule until I start training for NYC in August. I will talk about my summer exercise schedule in my next blog post. Today was my longest run since the marathon and I’m currently typing this with an icepack on my knee. Besides my knee, the run felt pretty good. I will have one more long run next Saturday and then the Run to Remember half marathon is the following weekend. Next week I need to start thinking about the triathlons I will be participating in this summer. Unfortunately my head still hasn’t healed from surgery and I am still weeks away from being able to swim. At this rate, I won’t be doing any triathlons this year. If you see me, try to refrain from laughing at the giant white bandage taped to the back of my head. Thanks.

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What’s next, you ask?

Mike’s Marathon Blog will continue……..just for a different race.

I will be running the 2010 New York City Marathon on November 7th for the Children’s Hospital Boston Miles for Miracles team!!!!!

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My birthday is in a few weeks, so Jack decided to give me a little weekend getaway as an early present. And the location she decided………….the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont. Trust me, it came as much of a shock to me as it did to you. I’m not exactly sure why she chose this place of all places. I’ve never seen the Sound of Music, I don’t know who the Von Trapps are, I don’t eat wienerschnitzel, it’s too late in the season to ski and plus, I just came back from Montreal 4 days ago. I thought the worst going in, but it actually turned out to be a nice weekend. Stowe is a nice little town and the views of the mountains are second to none. The Trapp Family Lodge is actually one of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World.

It unfortunately rained all day on Saturday, so we did not get a chance to do what we had planned on doing, which was renting mountain bikes. Luckily the Ben & Jerry’s factory was right down the street. After the tour, we got to sample the newest flavor Milk & Cookies. I would call your local supermarket ASAP, ask if they have this flavor in stock and fill the entire shopping cart with as many pints as you can. Do it. Later that night, we went to a very nice restaurant called Solstice, which was at the Stowe Mountain Lodge. Lobster risotto always makes up for a cold, rainy day (and a few beers). We went to bed, after Sweet Home Alabama of course, hoping for better weather on Sunday. Not so much.

We woke up the next morning to 30 degrees and 3 inches of snow on the ground. And it kept snowing all day! So, we did what any normal couple does on a nice romantic weekend in Vermont…….we went to the gym for 3 hours. It may have been my perfect day. We did 6 different circuit exercises for about 2 hours, Jack went and got a massage, I ran 4 miles on the treadmill and then we alternated between the outdoor hot tub and the sauna for the next hour. Talk about a nice, relaxing day. I’m actually kind of happy it snowed.

I just started working out again last Tuesday, so it was nice to get a long workout in on the weekend. Especially since we were away. The summer is a tough season to stick to an exercise schedule and I’m already feeling the pressure to skip the gym and hit the ice cream stand. I’ll talk about my summer exercise schedule in a future blog.

My next scheduled event is the Run to Rmember, which is a half marathon in Boston on May 30th. I typically do not have time goals in races, but I would like to try to break 2 hours, which would be my fastest half marathon time, by far. It will surely be a better day than last year since I ran the ’09 Run to Remember with a double ear infection, bronchitis, a throat infection and conjunctivitis. And it was my birthday. Seriously.

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I apologize for the large gap between blog posts. It has been two weeks since Marathon Monday and to be honest, I really haven’t done much of anything since. I needed a little break from everything marathon-related including marathon blogs and running.

Anyway, back to the race. Miles 9 through 11 were a bit boring. It’s probably the quietest stretch of the entire course. Plus, I had been running for over an hour and a half at this point, so the nerves and the excitement had disappeared for the most part. As we approached mile 12, we all knew what was is store for us. And if you weren’t aware, the giant Adidas sign that read ‘Can You Hear Them Yet?’ must have raised a red flag that something out of the ordinary was up ahead.

The ‘scream tunnel’ is where the girls of Wellesley College watch the race and believe me, you can hear them from at least a half mile away. The mile or so stretch as you pass Wellesley College is by far the most entertaining section of the course. And they don’t call it the ‘scream tunnel’ for nothing. You can barely hear yourself think it is so loud because the girls literally scream and ring cowbells the entire time……..the entire time! And if you’re thinking to yourself, ‘funny, they never show that part of the race on TV?.’ Well, there is a reason for that. To parents of Wellesley College students: do not come visit your sweet, innocent daughter on this day.

If there are 500 signs being held, 495 of them say the word ‘kiss’ on them. What comes before and after ‘kiss’ varies from girl to girl. ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’, ‘Kiss Me, I’m Italian’, ‘Kiss Me, I’m a Girl’, ‘Kiss Me, I’m ____.’ You get the idea.  And if you’re a guy (or some times a girl) and wandered too close to the fence where the girls were standing, you were swallowed up like a cheeseburger on Kirstie Alley’s dinner plate. They would literally rip you over the fence and do to you exactly what their sign said.

Pace girl and I were laughing and admiring the guys that were willingly running too close to the fence. One guy beside us must have kissed every third or fourth girl he ran by. It’s like these chicks were trapped in a chastity cave for the entire school year and only let out on Patriot’s Day. We were almost to the end and decided to at least slap a hand or two. Bad idea. As soon as my feet drifted to the right of the double yellow line, they were in attack mode. ‘MIKE!! Get over here!!!’ ‘Kiss me!!!!!!!’ I slapped a hand and sprinted back to the middle. I wonder how many runners ‘disappear’ in the scream tunnel every year?

After Wellesley college, the race was a giant blur. My sister came to see me in Wellesley Center, which is exactly the halfway point. She was holding a big Greek flag, which was extremely easy to spot in a crowd of a few hundred people. The biggest Children’s viewing section was about a mile after I saw my sister. Many of the patients from the hospital and their families gathered in front of the same church where we met every Saturday morning. It was pretty cool running by and slapping the kids’ hands. These were literally the people we were doing this for and it looked like the were having the time of their lives that day.

My stomach was absolutely killing me. I told pace girl to take off just before the 95 overpass. I couldn’t keep up and was needing to stop at far more water stations than planned. Since water was the only thing I could get down for the past 2 hours or so, I was starting to get tired. And of course, just as I was starting to hit ‘the wall’, the first Newton Hill was in sight. I’m not going to lie, the hills were brutal and I thought Heartbreak was never going to end.

I was in serious pain halfway up and the only thing that got me to the top was hearing ‘Mike, you are doing this for my kids.’ That was awesome. I was running so slow at that point, it seemed like it took me 10 minutes to pass the lady, but hearing that was definitely inspiring.

After Heartbreak, you are greeted by almost all 9,000 undergrads at BC. I gotta say, they gave the Wellesley College girls a run for their money. They were loud and crazy and what differed between the 2 crowds? There was a fence in front of the sidewalk in Wellesley. I seriously felt like Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France running through Chestnut Hill. The entire road was now narrowed down to maybe a 5-foot path and you could easily slap hands on both sides at the same time. The police were pushing them back, but they wanted nothing to do with it. They were rowdy and dozens of Eagle fans would be chanting a runners’ name simultaneously until they passed. Running through the sea of yellow Super Fan tees, I remembered a word of advice from one of the coaches before we exited the bus in Hopkinton. He said ‘do NOT take a red Solo cup from anyone on the course. It will not be water or Gatorade, trust me.’

Coming down the other side of Chestnut Hill, I ran into a good friend of mine who was working at a first aid station. She kept saying ‘you’re almost there, you’re almost there’ and I started thinking ‘wow, I still have about a half hour to go.’ I knew my friends and family were at Kenmore and that is the only thing I thought about for the next 3 miles. As I approached the city, the crowds just kept getting bigger and bigger. And really from mile 1, the spectators kept getting drunker and drunker as we ran. Even after 26 miles, I felt better than every single one of my friends on Tuesday.

After over4 hours of running, I was finally approaching Kenmore Square and more importantly, the finish line. As I crossed the Mass Pike overpass, I saw a large group of friends including Jacky. It was incredible. I felt like I just won the World Series. I could barely lift my arms to high-five them. Jacky actually jumped on the course and ran with me for the next half mile or so. A ways down, she directed me to the other side of the street where my family and more of my friends were awaiting my arrival. I passed a few more friends on my way down Beacon and at this point, I could smell the paint of the finish line. As we took the right on Hereford, Jacky said good-bye and told me she would see me in the family meeting section afterward.

The famous left onto Boylston…….this was it! The final turn and the last 385 yards of the race. I was now running down the middle of Boylston Street in Boston. No cars. Just me, the road and thousands of screaming spectators. I saw one more friend and mustered the very last of my energy to run over to him and slap his hand. 150 yards later, I crossed the finish line. I just ran the Boston Marathon!

And amazingly after running 26.2 miles, the BAA makes you walk about 8 blocks to exit the course. First there’s a block of water bottles, then a block of Gatorades, then a block of snacks. I wanted nothing to do with any of this. I wanted to vomit at the sight of every bagel and just needed to get out! Of course during this whole time, runners are diving into the hundreds of wheelchairs lining the sidewalk and making their way into any available first aid tent for much needed TLC. After about 15 minutes of walking (oh and don’t forget the 266 minutes of running), I finally made my way to  the ‘P’ section, where my dad and sister were waiting for me.

I was weak and light-headed, so we sat on a bench for a few minutes. My sister had a bag of chocolate chips and since I still felt too sick to eat, I swallowed them whole. I was drinking them with water, like Tylenol, just to get some sugar in me. We waited for Jacky and headed to the Westin Copley where my team was meeting.

We picked up my bag, sat and had a Pepsi, thanked some of the staff and started the trek to Eastern Standard. We saw a few more Children’s runners on the course as we were walking down Beacon. This time I was happy to be on the other side of the fence. Inside Eastern Standard were about 20 family members and friends. It was a great ending to a great day. Everyone ate and drank and ate and drank some more. I was double-fisting a Pepsi and a water the entire time. Finally at 8:30, we took a cab to the car and headed home. I took a much needed ice bath and ate a bagel with melted cheese, the first thing I consumed in over 12 hours. It was a long day and surely one that I will never forget.

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If you thought the other post was a tearjerker, this one should really get ya. I thought I would be more emotional during the race than I was. My stomach pains didn’t help matters and towards the end, I really just wanted it to be over. Even coming down Boylston, I really didn’t feel anything. My sights were on the finish line and that was it! But I did have a moment around mile 9. This is a true story and if you’ve been following my blog, you will not believe the ending. Enjoy.

It was so great to see pace girl, you have no idea! Seeing a familiar face on the course is rare and ‘running’ into her was exactly what I needed at that point in the race. My stomach was really bothering me and was starting to affect my mood. We talked for awhile, which helped shift my attention to something besides the alien trying to escape my stomach.

The crowds were getting deeper and deeper as we entered Natick. There must have been people 20 deep at some of the major intersections. And just like the other towns, spectators were screaming runners’ names from 50 feet away. Not only were they cheering for ‘Mike’ and ‘Children’s,’ they were cheering ‘go Emily’ as well. I had white tape across my back that read ‘4 EMILY’ and folks must have been reading it as I ran past them………or so I thought.

The first time I heard a ‘go Emily’ cheer, I immediately thought about the Mandell’s and why I was running this brutal race. If Brian hadn’t inspired me to run over a year ago, I probably would have been at a bar with my friends and not at mile 8. If Jack worked somewhere else or if Emily went to a different hospital, I wouldn’t be running for Children’s. The doctors and nurses at Children’s care for sick kids every single day. Raising some money and running 26 miles was the very least I could do to help. I was so proud to be wearing the Children’s singlet and even more honored to have ‘4 EMILY’ taped on my back. If that white tape brought a smile to Katie Mandell’s face when I ran past her, then my day was a success.

Between the screams of the spectators, the hundreds of cowbells and the loud thuds of runners’ feet, something caught my attention on the sidewalk. I heard someone yell ‘go Emily,’ which had been a steady cheer for the past few miles, but this one was different. This one was in front of me. I started watching people on the sidewalk and saw with my own eyes ‘go Emily’ coming out of different mouths. How could this be? How did they know I was running for Emily when they were standing in front of me? Maybe it wasn’t for me?

I started looking around for an ‘Emily.’ I turned to my left, nothing. I looked behind me the best I could, nothing. There were men in front of me, so it couldn’t have been them. Where was Emily?

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember exactly where we were. Honestly, out of the 26.2 miles, I could bring you to the exact spot where this happened. My mind starting going a mile a minute, my heart was pounding (even more than it had been) and my goosebumps had goosebumps.

I knew it before I even turned my head. A part of me didn’t want to look. I wanted it to be true and would have been a bit disappointed if I was wrong. I started thinking back to the Saturday runs in Wellesley and how this person got me through so many of them. I started thinking about all the people that have said to me, ‘that blog post was so funny’ and ‘I can’t believe you don’t know her name and you run with her every week.’ This some how turned into the front page story of my training. I still couldn’t believe that we found each other in a crowd of 23,126 runners.

I kept hearing the cheers, ‘go Emily’, ‘go Mike’, ‘go Emily’, ‘go Mike.’ We had been running side by side for a few miles. Actually, we had been running side by side for 4 months and I still didn’t know her name…….until now. I looked to the right and there was pace girl, less than six inches from me. And right there on her singlet, in large colorful bubble letters, was her name……EMILY.

Her name was Emily the whole time.

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Keep in mind it is 10:30 in the morning on a weekday. The sidewalks are 5 deep all the way down East Main Street. A giant platform with rows of chairs stood at the starting line holding members of the BAA, John Hancock execs, Senator Kerry and Olympic Gold Medalist Hannah Kearney of Vermont, who served as the honorary Grand Marshal of this year’s marathon. Covering a big hill just past the starting line was at least 150 people cheering, snapping pictures and waving their American flags.

Kids were reaching their hands into the streets hoping to slap runners’ hands on the way by. Once a hand came into contact with their own, their faces would light up like a Christmas tree. You’d think they were slapping the hands of Miley Cyrus or Harry Potter. Today, we were the celebrities. A new spectator would yell my name every couple of feet. ‘Go Mike’, ‘you can do it Mike’, ‘good job Children’s Hospital.’ It was insane! People were sitting on guardrails, on porches, on lawns, on fences, in trees, in windows, on cars in driveways, everywhere and anywhere a person could be.

The first few miles of the race travel through the very rural towns of Hopkinton and Ashland, so crowds are either gathered on the sides of the road, in front of residential houses or at small commercial businesses. The residential sections were made up of families, their kids, their friends and a few amateur lemonade stands for the runners. The younger crowd would cheer, attempt to slap hands, hand out orange slices and attempt to slap more hands. The adults would continuously cheer on individual runners by reading the names on their singlets. You knew every runners’ name within a 10 foot radius because the crowd was constantly shouting their names. For the first few miles, the residential crowds definitely helped calm the nerves with their positive cheering and support.

The commercial crowds were also very supportive, just in a completely different way. The small business crowds were absolutely crazy! Restaurants were serving food and beer in the parking lots, a gas station had a full rock n’ roll band on their roof, bars were overflowing with already annihilated bikers, drunk women in American flag bikini tops were screaming on the sidewalk and an insurance company had giant speakers blaring the theme song to Rocky.

I finally caught up to Brian around mile 5. I believe we hugged it out again, mid-run, and gave recaps of how our first couple of miles had been. We ran together for a few minutes until it was time for my first GU stop. I pulled to the side, popped some GU and washed it down with some water. You know in the movies when someone eats something bad and they play that unpleasant sound of a stomach not really accepting whatever they just swallowed? I was unfortunately the star of this movie at mile 6. Whatever was in my stomach was not getting along wit the GU and water that I just introduced them to. I tried to shake it off and made my way back up to Brian. We talked for a few more minutes and I took off at the Framingham train station.

My stomach was not getting any better. I felt like a cement mixer running down the middle of the road. With my positive attitude sinking a bit and approaching one of the toughest sections in that area, I felt a tap on my right shoulder. Did Brian catch up to me? There’s no way, I thought. I left him over a mile ago. As I turned my head to the right, I saw the person that I had been searching for since we left the lodge. We started in different corals, so I had around a 5 minute head start. I slowed down for a mile or so when I saw Brian, which gave my new running partner time to catch up. Who was this pleasant surprise from the back of the pack? It was pace girl!

To be continued…………

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My alarm clock sounded Monday morning at 4:30 a.m. Today I was running the Boston Marathon. It’s a strange feeling being able to say that to yourself. Even after months of knowing and 169 days of training, it still doesn’t really hit you until that day. I got dressed like I do every other Monday, but this Monday was different. I packed my bag and ate breakfast like I’ve done for every long run for the past 5 months, but this wasn’t just a long run. This was THE long run. This was the long run that all the other long runs have been leading up to. As the nerves started spreading throughout my entire body, I was on 93 South heading to Boston. The buses to Hopkinton left at 6:15 sharp.

Jacky dropped me off at the Westin Copley at 6. The entire lobby of the hotel was filled with nervous and excited Miles for Miracles runners with their green Adidas bags. These bags were given to us (and every other Boston runner) with our bib numbers and were the only bags allowed in Hopkinton. I joined my team on the floor and started reading all the Facebook messages and texts on my phone that had been coming in non-stop since the night before. Even at 6 in the morning, people were already reaching out to me to wish me luck. It was amazing and definitely helped calm the nerves.

After a small disaster with the buses, we were on our way to Hopkinton. Apparently our buses got the message: ‘pick up team at Children’s Hospital’ instead of ‘pick up Children’s Hospital team at Westin Copley.’ Somehow they found a few extra buses for us and we were off. The reason for the early arrival is because the roads in Hopkinton close at 7:30. If you aren’t where you need to be before then, you’re walking. And trust me, none of us wanted to walk any further than we needed to.

We arrived at the Masonic Lodge in Hopkinton at 7:15. All runners gather at the Athletes’ Village, which is the town’s Middle School, but luckily for us we get an entire building to ourselves. We have 2 floors to spread out, comfortable chairs to relax in, endless amounts of food and drinks and most importantly, our own private bathrooms. We needed to be ready to go at 9:30, so until then we were on our own. I grabbed my camera and headed to the starting line.

The music was blaring, the fences were up and the crowds had already gathered. This was Hopkinton’s Super Bowl and little did I know, I was one of the players that day! As I walked down the sidewalk towards the center of town, strangers were already wishing me luck. One after the other, ‘good luck today Mike’ and ‘good luck Children’s.’ I felt like 1 of 26,000 celebrities gathered on this narrow, rural road in the middle of nowhere (in case you were wondering, my name was taped on the front of my shirt, so people can cheer you on during the race).

I walked around for awhile, took pictures, spoke with some of the spectators and mainly soaked up all this morning had to offer. I waited awhile to see the elite runners come out, but unfortunately had to head back to the lodge. It was 90 minutes until the gun went off.

Back in the lodge, I started getting ready for the race. I changed into my clothes, Aquaphored the feet, tied my shoes, sprayed on some suntan lotion, had a few pretzels, finished my Gatorade and sent my last text – ‘heading to the starting line.’ That’s when I started getting nervous. All of us gathered upstairs for a few speeches from some of the Miles for Miracles staff and the coaches. We then headed outside for our pre-run stretching ritual. We packed up our bags, put them back on the buses (the staff would take them to Boston for us) and started heading to our assigned corrals.

Your bib number dictates which corral you start in. The corals (in wave 2) start at 15,000 and go 7/10 of a mile down the street to 26,500. The majority of the Miles for Miracles team had numbers in the 23,000, including me. As I was walking down the sidewalk, passing thousands and thousands of runners, I noticed a familiar face – Brian Mandell (Emily’s dad). Brian was the inspiration for me to even apply to run the Boston Marathon for Children’s Hospital and Emily was the ‘miracle’ I was running for. Was it just a coincidence that I happened to see him in a crowd of over 15,o0o people? I don’t think so. We locked eyes and hugged it out. He was a couple corals ahead of me and I told him that I would catch up to him in a few miles.

I finally found my way to coral 23,000. I joined the other Children’s runners for some last minute hugs and high fives. The helicopters were soaring above, the crowd was screaming and the cameras were flashing. As the starting gunshot sounded from down the street, the runners cheered. It would take us over 15 minutes to cross the starting line. After a few minutes, the tense, fidgety standstill turned into a slow walk. The slow walk grew into a slight jog. The starting line was finally in sight. The slight jog converted into a run. I was 50 feet from the start. I took a few deep breaths, started my stopwatch and crossed the starting line. The 114th Boston Marathon had begun.

To be continued………

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