The Boston Experience

In a word, FANTASTIC!!!

Where to start???


So we arrived to Boston after our long train ride late Friday night to stay and finally meet the infamous Locked and Loaded, KIM! After some pizza, wine and talking we hit the hay for our big Saturday!

Saturday morning we awoke early, showered, grabbed a cab, dropped the bags by the hotel, hit Starbucks and was at the expo as it opened at 9 AM. The Boston Marathon expo was jam packed with cool stuff to see and I felt like a kid in the candy store that could not get enough. I purchased an Adidas Boston Marathon black jacket, a race belt with a pocket for my gels and when I thought I was done buying I found these insane arm warmers that I just had to have! They looked like full sleeve tattoos chalk full of colors, flowers and even some lucky dice! Yeah, they were pretty cool to say the least.

Us girls all took a moment to get our gait analyzed. Apparently I have a nice clean forward gait motion and I am a pronator. That was what I thought, but good to get it confirmed that stability shoes are the choice for me.

We cut the expo a bit short to head over to Legal Seafoods for lunch, ESpeed's pick for her "cornicopia" salad of flavors. I opted for a grilled shrimp ceasar salad and about 5 big glasses of water before we headed over for our duck tour.

Now I had heard the Duck tours were quite cheesy but I got to say I had a blast and laughed a ton while learning about the city. Captain Hardly Davidson who was hiding from a local scooter gang that had too many bake sales took us around the city and into the water. About the time my bladder was about to burst we made it back to Prudential center in time for a tiny bit of shopping. Then it was time to head up to the Charles River for a nice 5 mile run with 5-100 yard strides. About this time I decided I needed to definitely sit on my butt more as my feet were tired on the run from walking around so much!

We got back to the hotel, hopped in the hot tub briefly and then showered up for the evening fesitivities. We headed to Vinny T's with Southeast Running Club peeps for some Italian food which was quite good. Then Dawn and I headed out with a couple others for some drinks and finally drug our butts to bed about 1:30 AM.

First tiring day in the city down and two more to go!!! Next up Sunday's trials!! Lots of fun pics to come!!!

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I know you are all wondering how my race went? The abbreviated version is just as planned. I had planned to take it all in and just have fun while trying not to beat myself up too bad so I can race at Cleveland in 4 weeks.

I went out faster than I wanted to and was consciously trying to hold back. Then at mile 11 I hit the port o potty which took forever. Picture 2 POP with 5 people waiting in line to go and everyone is taking their time crapping! So 5 or 6 minutes later I was out with the realization that my chaffing legs needed some vaseline. Over to the med tent for some of that. I gotta say I was in no real hurry. I thought about trying to make up the time. Then, decided who cares, letz just have fun!! I ran the miles comfortably and had another long POP stop. I smacked hands like crazy, took it all in, had a blast and felt good the whole way finishing in 4:17.