End of a Long Day

Let me first acknowledge some people with "shout outs" for their help or support today.

First, if you have not taken the time you should read down through the blog of my day experiencing the Boston Marathon as runner #24772. The posts go through the "older post" button and you should check those out. After 6:15 in the morning (Eastern time) none of the posts would have happened without the help of Marianne Clancy who works with me in the SEC office. It's not easy to run and type. It's likely even more difficult to read and properly interpret what someone else is typing while they run. She did that well, so many thanks to her.

Second, I learned during the day that my colleague Joe D'Antonio (Joey D.) of the Big East Conference was updating the NCAA Division I Legislative Council on my progress. Thanks to Joey D. for the "plugs," for my fellow Council members for putting up with the updates, and for Gil Grimes of the SEC for capably representing the Conference (in my place) at this meeting.

Third, the people of Boston and its suburbs are phenomenal! The volunteers, fans, supporters, college students and just the people you meet on the street were great all day. As I walked to my hotel after the race, every person offered congratulations to me--men and women, young and old, different ethnicities all said "congratulations."

As for the race, I'll be honest that my goal was a time between 4:10 and 4:15. I ran in 4 hours, 25 minutes, almost the exact time from last year. Now, I have to believe that typing blog entries while one runs costs at least ten minutes of time...so maybe I did meet my goal after all. At about mile 19 I encountered nausea that dogged (and slowed) me for the last seven miles. It has never happened to me before (in 28 previous marathons), but it happened today. I'm not sure why, although I have an idea...but I hope it does not happen again.

By the way, an earlier post indicated Elvis was singing on a pickup in Natick Center. I was wrong, I passed Elvis at mile 17. Apparently, Elvis had left the pickup truck. No picture was taken as he was dressed in a way too tight white jumpsuit.

It was cold today. 46 degrees at the finish, with a howling wind out of the east. It was in our face the entire way. After finishing, I was freezing cold. A very hot shower helped thaw me. The shower is actually one of the tests of a successful marathon. Any chafing, burns, scrapes or blisters are revealed by hot water. The good news is I had no new pain in the shower.

The final "shout out" goes to Cathy (my wife of 20+ years), and our daughters, Hannah and Moriah, for letting me live this adventure. They are also letting me live a new adventure in 12 days at the Whiskey Row Marathon in Prescott, Arizona, which will be the May marathon on my "marathon a month" quest.

Since the next marathon is only 12 days away, I'm going to blog each day (I hope) to share how my body is recovering, what I'm doing to aid in that recovery, and how I'm preparing for the May 2 event.

Thanks for reading!