Happy Boston Marathon for those who celebrate

And, best wishes to those, including Brian Klass, doing the London Marathon this coming weekend

Today is the Boston Marathon. I’m not in town to cheer on the runners, but my heart (and lungs and legs) will be thinking of them. I did Boston twenty-one years ago, and I have some memories of it.

Now that I live there, I believe I know which doorway I fell asleep in – more like passed out in – after the race. Let me back up. I did my fifth and “last” Ironman at the end of August 2003.¹ Nicknamed “Fireman Canada” because of the forest fires consuming the region around Penticton, BC, for the week or so prior, I and everyone else had been sucking in smoke for days. The swim course was altered because firefighters weren’t available to lifeguard and the run course was altered to keep evacuation routes open. On the bike, I rode through smoke with limited visibility, roads stained with fire retardant, and was dripped on from a bucket carried by a helicopter from a small lake on my right side to smother embers on a hillside to my left. I walked half of the run, unable to take a deep breath. I joined a pro female and we commiserated as we strugled toward the finish, eventually adding a pro male for a trio (pros wore yellow bibs in the race). We wanted to finish under 12hrs, but realized that meant the remaining miles needed to be done no slower than a 12min/mi pace, which we weren’t sure we could do in our condition. We finished in 11:52, and it sucked.

In the months that followed, I ran in the Santa Monica Mountains with Luna, the mountain runner, for about 35 miles / week, on trails that burned up earlier this year. I had signed up for one of my favorite runs, the Las Vegas Marathon, then a point-to-point starting from Jean and finishing in a park next to McCarran Airport. The race was twenty miles of net downhill, followed by 10km of “brutally flat,” with the final half to quarter mile uphill to the park. It was fun. The crosswinds one year (2003?) were brutal at around 45mph, often sustained, and also fun. The Vegas marathon was the end of January 2004, and one of the last Boston Qualifiers of the year. I had done zero road running, absolutely no track work, and had only been running trails with my dog (though for the 15-20 mile runs, I’d either go solo or meet my wife and hand over Luna at around mile 8 to 10). I looked at the Boston Qualifier times the night before the race and saw that I needed a 3:15. I thought that I could hit that, and did with a 3:15:52.

Just over a month later, in March, I PR’d at a 50km trail race. And about five weeks later, I was lined up for Boston.

Back then, you qualified and you ran, unlike today. As for the late qualifying races, like Las Vegas, well, just be ready to run again in a couple of months. I was, sort of.

The Boston Marathon was warm that year, getting to 85F / 29C. About six miles into Boston, I realized that I hadn’t fully recovered from the heat of the 50km and that I had failed to bring any salt pills. All was not lost, however. Nearing the end of marathon I asked someone when is Heartbreak Hill. They looked at me and said, “We already did it!” What? When? The trails had at least prepared me for the reality that a hill in a road marathon is often a “false flat” to a trail runner.

I finished Boston in 3:40 in a world of hurt. I sat for a while after the finish area before getting up to walk to the apartment of my wife’s friend where I was staying. I sat down in a doorway, probably on Dartmouth between CommAve and Marlborough as I believe now that I live in the area, only to fall asleep. Some people woke me to make sure I was fine, I said I was but I wasn’t. I eventually hailed a cab for remainder of the trip to the apartment, which was perhaps – at most – a half-mile away (the cabbie was not happy about this fare). It would be nine hours before any semblence of minimally adequate hydration appeared, and it was very, very dark. I now walk my dog in the neighborhood and believe I identified the stoop I passed out on.

Overall, I’m glad I had the opportunity to run Boston. Last year, I wore my Boston 2004 shirt to the marathon expo. Hopefully, I’ll get to run Boston again, though now it seems to require a bit of luck to get in. (That wasn’t my last event of 2004, even though I claimed to be “done.” I did a 140 mile relay race in the Mojave, including a 6a 6-8mi run in 85F and time trial up a hill on the bike in 90+F at 4p; ran about 32 miles as a charity group marathon coach at the Alaska Midnight Sun Marathon – helping a participant finish the marathon starting at about mile 3, then shuttling struggling runners the last miles to the finish; and, guided a blind triathlete at the Alcatraz and Malibu triathlons.)

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Brian Klaas

, who writes the essential

The Garden of Forking Paths

, is running the London Marathon this weekend (and raising money for UNICEF in the process). Good luck, Brian.

I had the opportunity to run London in 2016. I did it as a training event for my “A” race that year, a 69-mile ultramarathon largely along Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England. Wearing a somewhat loaded hydration pack as part of the prep (and not because the aid stations on the marathon course were lacking), I managed to finish London in 3:49 feeling a bit worn.

Hadrian’s Wall followed in June.

That was followed by the Berlin Marathon in September. I hadn’t planned on running Berlin. On my calendar for that day was the Moscow Marathon, but the situation in Russia deteriorated, so I managed to get into Berlin. I was not ready for Berlin. Having moved to Switzerland soon after the London marathon, I had been only running mountain trails and Berlin is pancake flat, offering me no opportunity to change up the demand on the muscles. That hurt. I finished in 4:25 and spent an hour in the medical tent afterward. Thankfully, that was it for 2016.

In 2017, I did several ultramarathons to collect points to enter the lottery for one of the UTMB events (the CCC, 100km). In April, I DNF’d at a 53km trail race in Tuscany, so that wasn’t awesome. In June, I struggled through a 62km (7200’ of ascent) trail run in Salzburg. In August, I ran a scenic 46km race (not long, but with 8800’ of ascent).

I was also cycling at the time, and the weekend after this 46km run, I did the AlpenBrevet gold route, then a 106-mile course over four iconic Alpine mountain passes with 16,100’ of ascent. (I strongly recommend the AlpenBrevet for any cyclist wanting to ride the Swiss Alps.) And in October was a race I signed up for purely for the points. Before the race, I decided I’d return to Ironman in 2018 with IM Wales (the Ironman Switzerland expo, then held in Zurich with the expo less than 5mi from where we lived, lured me back). I pondered doing the CCC and IM Wales, but as they were only two or so weeks apart, I chose Wales. This decision made the October 40-miler (8,100’ of ascent) I signed up for unnecessary since I was only doing it for the points for the CCC lottery.

However, my twelve year old son asked if I was a quitter if I didn’t do the race. My reasoning why I was no longer doing the event didn’t break through, so I ended up running it to make a point. I thought about that reasoning the night before the event while sleeping in an actual monastery, in a monastic bed in a matching room, to be greeted by a “breakfast” of an apple. The things we do as a father. (Yes, I learned he later forgot about this.)

That’s it for now. The regular programming will return here shortly.

Good luck today at Boston and good luck this coming weekend at London. The most important thing to do is to have fun.

PS Did I mention the time I and several friends wore banana costumes and ran the LA Marathon for Jamba Juice in 2002 or 2003? They gave each of us a year’s supply of Jamba for that. He horsed around on the course, paused to take pictures with friends no wearing costumes, paused at many of the bands, told banana jokes throughout, and finished in 3:52.

1. I eventually did more Ironman triathlons, one in 2018 and two in 2019. I’m done now. I think.