Surprisingly, it's the downhill that'll getcha

Cresting Heartbreak Hill I was so glad. The worst was over. I thought.

By now both of my quads were hurting and it wasn't going away and I realized that the pain wasn't stemming from an injury: it's because the Boston marathon is a net downhill course. I had actually been warned about this by another runner and I had aptly dismissed her, because, how can running downhill be anything but easy?

I had ten kilometres left and I told myself I would just run it in, nice and easy and treat it like a cool down, but I wasn't losing much time. We were getting closer to the finish line. Throngs of people lined the streets, screaming at us. It was borderline overwhelming. The crowds, the music, the other athletes, the smell of people barbecuing, the signs, the unanticipated pain. I knew we were getting close and I was looking for a landmark.

The marathon actually wound past the hotel we were staying at, which was a mixed blessing. I knew it was a twenty minute walk from our hotel to the finish line which was likely the equivalent of a ten minute run. I also knew that an additional ten minutes of running when you've run over twenty miles is ten minutes too much.

We drew close to our hotel and the pain in my legs was encroaching on unbearable: I had wrecked them on the downhills and I hadn't relented. I was on track for at least a 3:35 marathon. I debated walking a little decided that I just wanted to bring it in and get it over with.

Right on Hereford, left on Boylston. That's what someone's shirt had said at the expo. I remembered that as I turned right on Hereford.

Boylston. Oh my god. I turned left and I've never seen a finish line so far away. And I'd never seen so many people turn out to line the streets, to scream and cry and cheer and urge people on for that last gambit to the line. There were bleachers full of people cheering for us and I was at first dismayed by the distance that I still had to go and yet I was swept up in this foreign city by the excitement of these people that I had never met who were cheering for us, for me to make it to the end and so when I turned my head again to focus on the finish I was just that much closer and so I looked at my watch and thought "holy shit, I'm going to have a 3:30 marathon".

And I didn't cry at the end this time like I normally do because I had been weepy at the start.

And I raised my arms like I always do because every marathon is a victory.

And I knocked over eight minutes off my personal best to come in at 3:30:52.