T-plus 6: The Recap

Last Monday I promised you some post-Marathon "stories to follow".

With the busy week it did take me more time than I anticipated to coalesce my thoughts on this year's running. Yesterday afternoon -- following a bonafide 12-hours of sleep -- my writing chops finally returned, so I put together the following missive to send to the folks who financially supported me.

If you're reading this blog, you also supported me. So with slight modifications, I'll share with you as well.

Cheers --

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Greetings, friends:

First things first-- I'm still here!

A week of crazy workdays followed by four-hour musical rehearsals every night left little time to contemplate the completion of this week's early focus.....Monday's Boston Marathon in 4 hours 13 minutes 48 seconds.

Here are some more fabulous numbers for y'all to contemplate:

- 9:41 minutes-per-mile. While this was slightly less than my original 9:30 goal, I was very happy to run the entire race at a consistent 9:30-10-minute pace. Even greater.....my first 5 kilometers was 30:41 minutes while the final timed 5K was under 29:44.

In running parlance this is called a reverse split -- running the end of the race faster than the beginning. That means that after 23 miles of hill running I was still running my pace. And this is what a runnerdesires.

- 84 individual donations were made to fundraising efforts for Children's Hospital Boston.

Donors were family, friends of my family, friends from church, friends from the theater, friends from work, friends from piano gigs, friends I used to sing with, friends of friends whom I've never met, parents of friends, friends I met campaigning for Obama this fall, friends from my hometown who I haven't seen in more than a decade, and friends I used to date.

I've gotten many comments this week of folks being proud of me. Sheesh. I'm proud of you.

- (Incidentally, the temperature today is 84 degrees with a beating-down sun. Conditions on race day were in the low 40s with a breeze, 20-mph wind gusts and overcast skies. Which for a 10-minute miler like myself, could not have been more perfect.)

- $5,335.18 raised through these donations.

My 200-plus CHB teammates and I have together raised over $1.2 million dollars through this year's race.

- 352 (approx.) times I thought of my CHB patient partner Jayla during Monday's run.

Y'all heard from me last Saturday when I was sick with a chest cold, sore from shoulder to hip to foot, and very, very tired. I knew that going into Monday morning's race without a focussed mindset would be dangerous.

So I determined that whenever I'd feel sore or tired and not wanting to keep going -- I would think of Jayla and her parents, who face so many more challenges in her life than I will ever need to. Secondarily, I would think of my friends and family, emphasizing one person or group for each mile. I wrote all these folks' names on my forearms for easy reference and can't tell you the number of times I looked down to remind myself. (See photo "tattoos".)

These 2 foci proved to be the key to starting and finishing the race with a smile.

Monday's race was, for me, a mental victory over physical limitations. My legs were trained but not happy. My chest was full of phlegm. My mind was distracted with work, musicals, love life. Up until that morning my head had not thought about how I was going to make those 26.2 miles happen.

And I'm convinced that because every 5 minutes I told myself "If Jayla has to spend her childhood not walking, I can certainly spend the next X minutes in discomfort running", because I saw friends at miles 13, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24 and 26 and even got a kiss from one, because at mile 19.5 of Heartbreak Hill I said to myself "Smile, damn you, smile! Think about the awesomeness of this event and be grateful you are in it!" and then I did smile all the way up said damn hill, because Kenmore Square was a screaming rock-star stadium of Red Sox fans screaming for ME....the day was what it was.

Which was well worth it.