After a grueling week on the road (I started in Boulder and got to see the ocean off of both coasts and then ended up in Boulder), I just returned to my office at the end of the day to see a copy of 24: The Game running on the PlayStation 2 in my conference room. In the words of Jack Bauer, “Damnit.”
If you’ve been a long time reader of my blog, you know my fascination with bathrooms. Yesterday, I got an email with this link twice – I figured it was time to blog some new bathroom art.
NPR had a great segment over the weekend on the secret to happiness about this year’s most popular class at Harvard is Psych 1504, also known as “how to get happy.” Apparently the most popular class – until recently – was an economics class also known as “how to get rich.”
I finally got around to downloading my Boston Marathon data from my Garmin 301. I thought the GPS based data was extremely interesting, especially when compared to the official course elevation map. Following is the official elevation map:
Following is the map from my GPS post race:
Notice all the hills that get smoothed out in the official map, especially between miles 15 and 23.
I haven’t been out to see a movie in a while (I don’t know why – Amy and I love movies at the theater.) Last night we saw Thank You For Smoking. It was brilliant.
I thought the Christopher Buckley book Thank You for Smoking was an absolute riot when it came out. The movie is based on the book and does a superb job of telling the same story while updating it a little. Aaron Eckhart was phenomenal as the main character (a cigarette lobbyist) and William H. Macy continues to be the sleeper actor of the universe for his portrayal of the Vermont senator who wants to put poison labels on cigarettes.
The one liners were awesome. Following are a few better ones to give you a taste.
At 92 minutes in length, it also nicely broke the mold of movies that are 25 minutes too long.
Today must be an Onion day. I don’t read The Onion anymore – I rely on my vast network of friends to send me relevant stuff. The other day Matt Blumberg sent me a very disturbing article about Robot Hazing that a Fraternity at MIT was accused of. As a member of the fraternity that one of the founders and CEO of iRobot lived at, I can assure you that we took robot hazing very seriously whenever we heard about it, frowned down on it, and did everything we could to stand up for the rights of the robots involved.
Amy told me that I dress like the guy on the cover of The Onion Style Magazine.
I ran in the Boston Marathon on Monday. I was an official entrant – #20778. I did not time qualify – instead I ran in the charity program for the Michael Lisnow Respite Center. Several of my friends made financial contributions as did Amy and I. This “disclaimer” is an “asterisk” for those of you out there who don’t feel that those of us that run for charity are “official runners” in the Boston Marathon.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I had an amazing time. In my quest to run a marathon in every state by the time I’m 50, Boston was the seventh marathon that I’ve run and the third in the past six months. I’m beat and have decided to take the summer off to recover fully, train, get a deeper base (my base is currently 30 miles / week – I want to get it up to 50 miles / week), drop some more weight, and get mentally psyched up for the next one. Of course, knowing me, I might just sneak one in this summer.
I treked out to Hopkinton the night before with my friend Ilana to spend the night at her friend’s the Gould’s. I feasted on Annie’s Mac and Cheese and waffles (Ilana’s pre-meal dinner), watched the West Wing, and then went to bed early. The Gould’s house was comfortable and quiet (thanks Hunter) – I got a solid night’s sleep and was up around 9am. The marathon didn’t start until noon (and I was in the second wave that didn’t start until 12:30) so I had a nice leisurely morning.
Cathy took us to the Hopkinton State Park where we grabbed an old yellow school bus to the starting line. The race was extremely well organized – all of the charity runners were in the back of the second wave so we started behind everyone that had qualified by time. I crossed the starting line around 12:45.
The day was perfect – 50 degrees and cloudy. The sun broke through occasionally, but there was a cool breeze so it never became uncomfortable. 20,000 runners is a lot – there was a solid wall of people in front of me making their way down the two lane road through Hopkinton and Ashland before finally opening up a little bit at Framingham. Everyone talks about the downhill start of Boston – it’s more like a hard downhill followed by five miles of rolling hills with a net elevation loss of about 400 feet.
I’m slow to warm up on my long runs – I usually start feeling good at six miles. Unfortunately, I fell into the trap that so many do at the Boston Marathon and went out about a mile a minute faster than I expected for the first 10k. When I hit the Framingham train station, I felt tight and uncomfortable and forced myself to slow down for a few miles. The second 10k is always the best for me and I cruised through to the halfway point. The Women of Wellesley lived up to their billing and made Amy (my wife the Wellesley College alum) proud. I couldn’t help but speed up as I high fived 1000 or so screaming / cheering women.
The third 10k is my toughest – I end up in a lonely zone no matter how well trained I am. I was catching up on Coverville episodes on my iPod Shuffle when Show 190: The Covered Side of the Moon started. As I hit a good groove, a young kid (probably about 5) jumped out on the course with a hand full of pretzels at exactly the right time. The combination of the pretzels and strange versions of Dark Side of the Moon got me to the base of the Newton Hills.
I’m not sure what got me to the top of Heartbreak Hill. I don’t really remember it. I do remember seeing Art Mellor of the Accelerated Cure Project for MS and I’m sure I surprised him when I stopped and gave him a big hug.
There was one more nasty hill after Heartbreak around Cleveland Circle. The words that went through my head are not safe for PG-rated blog posts (thankfully this one isn’t PG rated – but I’ll spare you what went through my brain.)
Around mile 23 I saw the famed Citgo sign (which Amy and I lived under for three years when we lived on Bay State Road near Kenmore Square.) I looked up five minutes later and it was still out there in the distance somewhere. At this point my brain was mush, the people on Comm Ave were an abstraction of human life forms, and their cheers were like wind at my back, and the Citgo sign didn’t seem like it was getting any closer.
I eventually passed the Citgo sign. As I went under Mass Ave and then turned onto Hereford I felt a seventeenth wind and kicked it around the turn on Boylston Street and the last 200 yards across the finish line. Official time – 5:07:40. Given that I ran Miami on 1/29/06 in 5:00:53 and never feel like I really recovered, I’m very pleased.
Congrats to everyone that finished, including many friends like John Greff (Sequel VC partner – 3:42), Tom Mullen (frat brother – 3:15), Lon Sunshine (frat brother – 3:40), Sue Burke (Amy’s tennis coach – 5:41 – running for Multiple Sclerosis), and of course – my marathon buddy Ilana Katz (Feld Technologies employee #7 – 4:15 – running for Liver Cancer.) Oh – any everyone else!
The Boston Marathon is an incredible experience. I’m proud to have been part of the 110th running, and am honored to have been able to run for the Michael Lisnow Respite Center – thanks Nick and Shana for your initial sponsorship.
I got the following email from someone a few minutes ago.
I have enormous respect for the Boston Marathon. Having lived in Boston for 12 years, I’ve followed it my entire adult life. I have always known about the qualifying time and never expected to run Boston – I’m a slow runner (PR of 4:05) and I expect that – while I could qualify now that I’ve turned 40, I’ve decided instead to have a goal of running a marathon in every state by the time I turned 50.
I was pleasantly surprised on my 40th birthday by a friend who sponsored me by contributed to a charity affiliated with the race (Michael Listnow Respite Center). I’ve subsequently contributed to the charity, as have some of my friends. I expect you are aware of the relatively new tradition of charity runners at the Boston Marathon (and other marathons.)
I don’t believe this is a backdoor thing. I have an official number and am an invited part of the race (rather than a scab running without an entry.) I didn’t use any special influence – anyone can raise money for the charity to be part of the race – it’s not a matter of “buying a number”, but committing to raise a certain amount for the charity.
The Boston Marathon officially supports this as you can see on the web site “There are eighteen official charities participating in the 2006 Boston Marathon. The charities have fund-raising requirements and give a limited number of runners an opportunity to run Boston while benefiting a locally-based charity or chapter.”
I’m proud to run and contribute to a charity that is affiliated with the race. I have several friends who have qualified to run this year – they have all actively encouraged me to run even though I didn’t qualify by time. Finally, the marathon now segments the start. Charity runners are automatically put in the Second Wave which starts at 12:30. I’ll be lining up in the back so I don’t clog the way for any faster runner.
Again – I’m sorry this has caused you to feel the way you do. We live in a free country so you of course can feel anyway you want. However, I was surprised and saddened to get this email as I didn’t feel like my commentary on my blog about the marathon was disrespectful in any way. In fact, this is the first negative comment or lack of encouragement from anyone that I’ve interacted acted with – including many runners I don’t know – who have encouraged me, including my coach, Bobby McGee, who has coached numerous Olympic and world class runners.
As John Bingham says, “Waddle on, friends.”