Boston Marathon 2025

 

Boston, MA

Monday, April 20, 2025

My Boston history:  This was my 7th running of the Boston Marathon, having previously run this famous race in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2013.  As I write this "foreword" two days before Boston 2025, this is my planned final Boston.  I'm not retiring from marathons yet, and not a knock on Boston Marathon itself, but seven is a good stretch, the logistics aren't easy, and there are so many other good races.

My previous best Boston was in 2013.  It was the year of the infamous bombing, but I was finished and on my way home before I had any idea of that horrific and meaningless attack.  I have run the marathon in the full sun and high 80s (back when the race started at high Noon), and I've run it in cold wind-driven rain, but in 2013 the weather was pretty favorable in the 50s and cloudy.  I finished in my best Boston time that year in a 2:56:16.

Goals:  

Original:  beat my 2013 time AND podium in my age group.

Revised:  "A" goal sub-3, "B" goal sub-3:10, "C" goal sub-3:20

I've revised downward based upon significantly slowing times this year.  I am aware that this could very well be the race that I finish north of 3 hours, and I'm finally OK with that.  And now onto the race ...

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(next section written 24 hours post-race)

Boston minus one:  Headed up to Boston with Matthew and his friend/UNH roommate Andrew mid-day Easter Sunday.  Missed any Easter Sunday festivities or family get-togethers, but that's fine with me.  Easter was fun when the kids were young and we had Easter egg hunts, but nowadays it doesn't really mean much to me.  Took Amtrak from Westerly to Boston's Back Bay station, and walked to the finish line on Boylston, got lunch at Finagle a Bagel, and walked to the expo. 

At the finish line

Not that I want to spend all afternoon walking around an expo, but the expo was really disappointing and small with just major sponsor booths, as compared to the last time I ran Boston and they had many different shoe manufacturers, running clothes and apparel booths, booths from marathons around the world, etc.  

Bib pick-up was easy enough, although they ran out of men's
small shirts and offered a women's medium instead

Took MBTA to Mansfield and Uber to the hotel we'd be staying in Wrentham.  Had a decent pasta dinner at a restaurant within walking distance, laid out my race "kit" for the morning, and called it a night early.

Race kit is ready to go

Race morning:  Alarm went off at 5am.  Had oatmeal and a bagel, dressed, and out the door.  Pre-booked Uber to North Attleboro Elementary School, where we met up with friends Tommy and Shara for a nice coach ride to Athlete's Village.  For $100, the coach bus organized by Evolution Road Runners was an easy decision.  Bypass the bumpy and uncomfortable school ride from Boston Common and skip the Athlete's Village with sitting outside and long porta-jon lines, and instead enjoy a nice coach bus and a dedicated area at Athlete's Village with NO porta-jon lines and stay on the bus as long as you want.

(l-r:  Shara, Tommy, me, Andrew, Matthew)
Just before taking coach bus in North Attleboro, MA

Tommy and I were both in Wave 1, Corral 7, with a departure time from Athlete's Village of 9:15am.  Things had gotten a lot more structured since I last ran Boston in 2013, and the 9:15am was a hard fixed time where you were detained by a closed gate until exactly 9:15am.   When the gates opened promptly at 9:15am for Wave 1, we then saw that there were separate roped off queues for each of the corrals, or move specifically for Waves 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, and 7/8.  We got to the very front of our roped off area, and about every 5 minutes, another corral was released to head to Athlete's Village.  This was all new since I last ran.

Had my last Untapped waffle, and volunteers came out to collect garbage, which was convenient.  When our corral was finally released, Tommy and I started to jog, but only until we reached the main road heading to the starting line area.  It was completely clogged with runners walking, and no opportunity for a warm-up or strides.  Again, another change, this time in the negative category.

Just before reaching the corrals, there is a big porta-jon and urinal area on our left.  But it is insanely packed and the line we're in doesn't appear to be moving.  We note that it's ten minutes before ten (race start), and we see some people peeing in bushes up against a CVS, we exit the line and proceed to those pushes.  I just start to pee, when a BAA race official comes by and yells at us to leave, yelling that "CVS is not a urinal!".  Well, OK, BUT you've got to do something better about providing enough bathrooms as we'd miss the race start if we waited in those insane lines.

Tommy and I made our way to Corral 7, and it wasn't long before the race started.  I was thrilled to hear AC/DC's Highway to Hell (I think we both were), and then Tommy pointed out the military flyover (two F15 planes from MA National Guard), and we began the slow walk to the finish line.  It would take us 6 minutes 24 seconds after the start of the race just to reach the start line!

1st half:  It was fun running with Tommy.  In general I was trying to keep splits no faster than 6:30 and no slower than 6:45, and while neither one of us had a specific stated goal, it seems we had similar target pacing and pulled it off.  We would each call out splits each time our watches indicated each mile, and it was good that Tom was calling out his splits as well as it became obvious his splits were more accurate and closer to the actual mile markers.   (Sidenote:  I love my Garmin Fenix 5, so hopefully this was just an anomaly this time and I don't need to look for a replacement.)

One of the early on highlights for me was seeing the Spencer statue
at 4K as you enter Ashland.  Tommy knew the story better than me,
but Spencer was the "official Boston Marathon dog" who watched
and cheered runners from the sidelines (left) for eight years,
and now a statue memorializing him is in the same area facing runners.
Pretty cool!

Other than my Garmin splits here being off by probably about 5 seconds,
you can see that my pacing was pretty consistent in the 1st half of the marathon.

I mentioned to Tommy that I was getting pretty warm, and he indicated the same.  It was nice anytime we had the opportunity to run in the shade, but those were increasing few and far between.  In Mile 12, I was feeling niggles (aches, pains, etc) in my legs.  That's pretty normal in every marathon I run, but not by Mile 12.  If that keeps up (it did), I knew it was pretty much game over.

At the end of Mile 12, we went our own ways as unfortunately I just couldn't hang anymore.  Tommy looked back a few times but I just didn't have it anymore.  Pretty depressing.  In Newport Marathon 2017, we ran together for 21 miles, which was fantastic.  But today it was not to be.  I saw Tommy not to far ahead of me for the next mile and across the halfway mark, but after that he was out of my sight.

2nd half:  This was a LONG LONG slog back to Boston, both literally and figuratively.  The further I went, the worse I felt and the slower I got.  Every mile marker seemed to take eternity to reach, and I was generating a lot of negative thoughts along the way.  

I felt myself getting sunburned, I was not having fun, and I questioned whether I should continue.  At one aid station just after the first hill (Mile 17?), I saw a couple of buses lined up presumably to take back the DNF'ers.  I gave that some thought, but I knew in my heart of hearts that I was in it to finish, not matter how bad my time.  The more serious thought I considered was to enter one of the many medical tents that were well marked towards the end of the course.  Maybe just go in there, rest up for a bit, get some electrolytes, and finish.  It's not like my time my mattered one iota anymore anyway.

I bypassed each and every medical tent, continued to slow, but had no issues at all with any of the four Newton hills.  Of course that was because I was going so slowly at this point!  Bob Segal and his wife were out on the course at Mile 18, and he called out to me, as I did my best to put on a smile and wave back.  It is really encouraging to see people you know out on the course.  In the last few miles I heard "Jeff Walker!" called out several times, but it was so crowded I never saw anyone else that I recognized.

Beacon Street was a long, ugly slog.  I had to pee (maybe because I didn't get to finish before the start?) and while I could possibly hold out until the finish, it's not like there will be bathrooms there and what's the point of having an uncomfortable bladder given my time is already shot?  At Mile 24, I pull into a bank of porta-jons.  Exiting the porta-jons back into the race, of course now the problem is it's very hard to get "running" again.  I do it, I'm hating it, and tell myself just run until the Mile 25 mark and then take a walking break.  I get to the Mile 25 mark, and tell myself that I just have 1.2 miles to go, so don't stop now.  I don't.

Reduced to a mere shuffle on Beacon Street
in Mile 25
(Photo courtesy of Karen Short)

Final result:  3:20:45 (7:40 average pace).

And my official splits and time from timing mats.
Yeah, pretty bad.

Ouch!  Didn't make my "A", "B", or even my conservative "C" goal.  Just an awful performance.  It's of little consolation for me that I easily requalified for Boston (3:50:00 for my age/sex), but of much bigger disappointment to me that I didn't come close to re-qualifying for World Majors Age Group Championships (which depending upon the 2026 selection, I may want to do):

I wanted to just get out of there and hide.  I didn't sulk, but I certainly didn't smile or engage with any of the finisher volunteers.  I took the medal in my hand (didn't want that put on me), skipped the "food" (bag of mixed stuff, mostly junk food) and took the very first exit out of the finish area and walked/shuffled to the hotel.  I wish I could've just gone to the train station directly (like in my last Boston 2013) and headed home, but my slow performance meant we missed the 1:43pm train back to Westerly anyway, so off to the hotel to collect my gear.

Unfortunately, it got much worse from there, as once I reached the hotel room reserved for the folks on the bus, I sat down in a chair and pretty quickly I was in a lot of pain (not soreness, but searing pain bringing tears to my eyes) and also felt very cold and shivering.  I wish I could have just recovered from this in the privacy of a medical tent but instead became even more of a spectacle in front of my friends and fellow bus riders as the hotel's head of security came in and insisted that he call emergency responders.  He (George) was obviously following protocol and doing the right thing, and he was a really nice guy, but it was a tad embarrassing.  EMS arrived and wrapped me in blankets, but I continued to shiver on and off for a while and felt light-headed.  Fortunately, all my vitals were fine, and they said my body temperature was actually very warm.  Then why I was shivering?  They said think about a time when you had a fever and may have had cold sweats and shivered.   OK, got it.  They asked me three separate times if I wanted to go to the hospital and I declined, saying I was pretty sure it would pass.  Which it did, and they said my color was coming back nicely and as long as I could stand up on my own, and walk a few steps without falling, they would release me.  And I did.

A slow and painful walk to Back Bay train station with Matthew, Andrew, Tom, and Shara was next.  We coincidentally ran into Jeff V and friends on the walk over, but I just explained that I was in a lot of pain, moving slowly, and just wanted to keep moving.  (Fortunately I ran into most of them the next day at Avondale, where I was able to be a bit more sociable!)

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So now looking back (it's four days post-marathon now), here's my take on:

What went well (including training, race logistics, my own race):

• Training upsides:  I started my training according to schedule (Christmas time), got in three 20+ milers, and had a good closing week.
• Race communications and race registration process were all crystal clear and easy.
• The amount of mile markers, kilometer markers, clocks, and mats out on the course were all top-notch (this is a world class marathon after all).
• My first half of the marathon was run pretty smoothly and consistently (thanks notably to Tommy for helping keep me in check) and really close to what I was looking for.
• Running in general with Tommy, including lining up, just made the process that more enjoyable.
• I never bonked (probably because I was going so slow).

What could have gone better:

• Training downsides:  My training was interrupted for two weeks with a PF issue.  I didn't get in nearly enough MP miles (yes, some of that was due to recovering from PF and road running hurt for a while, but it doesn't change the fact).  
• Weather:  It certainly could have been worse (it was almost 80°F in Boston just two days prior), but I don't buy reports that it was "perfect weather".  I was warm out there and got sunburned.
• I walked too much the afternoon before the marathon, mostly getting to and from the expo.
• Despite Tommy and I being at the front of our wave/corral queue when they released us, I didn't have enough time to use the bathrooms.
• It was impossible to run either a warm-up or strides.
• Second half of the marathon I just completely fell apart early on and progressively got worse.  My legs were sore, did not want to move, and there was no correction.
• Post-marathon was a horrendous embarrassment with being attended to publicly by EMS while shivering and in pain.

I wish I knew the specific factor(s) that caused my race basically to be over at Mile 12, but it's easy to overanalyze and hard to pinpoint what went wrong.  I just need to move forward.

Congratulations to all the WTAC runners
completing Boston Marathon 2025!

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Nice finisher's medal

Here are the seven Boston Marathon finisher medals I've earned:  
2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2013, 2025
It's interesting to see how the medal has evolved during these decades,
from smaller and black and white, to color and more than three times the size.

So what's next?  I switch now more into trail running, and my upcoming goal races are trail races, culminating with a 55K ultramarathon in Iceland in mid-July.  That doesn't mean I won't be running road races during this time, and in fact I have a few of those I'm really looking forward to, including running Gaspee Days for the first time ever in June, and returning for my 23rd consecutive Blessing of the Fleet 10-Miler in July.

Unfinished business:  I understand and accept that I'm aging and slowing, but I refuse to accept (until proven otherwise) that aging accounts for me slowing by more than 27 minutes in the marathon (a 16% decline) in just the five months since I ran Indianapolis Marathon in 2:53:26.  Yes, I'm signed up for the NYC Marathon, but being the largest marathon in the world and with NYC Marathon having so many similar logistical downsides to NYC Half and Boston Marathon (long walk to expo, long transportation ride to the start, likely limited or no option for warm-up or strides, very crowded start, etc), I'm not so optimistic that the odds are in my favor to run well there.

So I'm actually thinking of adding in another marathon that has better logistics than NYC.  Idle talk or really a possibility?  Time will tell ...