Boston with Ebullience

Remember when I ran the Boston Marathon!!!!!? Remember that it was more than just the 3:40 minutes of running that made it such a joyous experience!? This will be a long and detailed blog, so just read what you want and enjoy the pictures otherwise.

Boston is an amazing little old city and it was packed with people! I don't think that is different from how it usually is, but because everyone was a crazy runner and wearing boston attire, it made it seem all the more thrilling and fast-paced.

Here are some highlights of the adventure:

The expo the day before was AMAZING! I have never seen so many runners and so many runner companies and so many free things all in one place, and i have definitely never partaken so liberally of so many free things. But Dad, Bum, Mom, and I basically got free lunch (and what a protein, energy-providing lunch it was!) We also got a mini-massage, a sweet poster with everyone's name on it, rings, stickers, tattoos, power bars, slushies, yogurt, etc, etc, etc. I even won a t-shirt!

And I got my bib number, of course. It was really REAL then. I was really going to run the Boston Marathon.

We went and toured the finish line and there were a billion people milling around and taking pictures.
We toured around Boston for a little bit-what a fascinating little city! There were old churches and old cemeteries and we even rode the subway! I see now why Jame loved it and wished that we had more and time less miles to run the next to day so we could've walked around more.

The grave of Mother Goose

We also drove that night to the start line in Hopkinton. Both the start and finish lines are painted permanently on the road. It was a surreal and sacred experience to be at the start line the night before when no one else was, just thinking that in a few short hours thousands of anxious little runners would be completely packed into an area that just simply can't accommodate them all. And I would be one of them! I think it was almost like seeing an ultrasound of a baby you've been carrying for months the day before you give birth haha.

THEN THE DAY ARRIVED! I thought it was weird in St. George when I woke up and thought, "today i will run a marathon"--imagine waking up and thinking, "Today i will run the Boston Marathon!"

You would feel like this:

The athlete's village was INCREDIBLE! It was a colony of carb-loading runners just waiting around, avoiding the wind, applying ointment to every surface imaginable, and stretching all possible muscles. Can you believe that among that 27,000 people, I somehow still managed to run into Cheryl, who was a sports camp counselor with me!? This was her 9th marathon, and she is a stud. It was nice to have a friend to hang with before the race, something that doesn't usually happen to me.
Also, I was waiting in line at the port-o-potty before (by the way, no less than 5000 port-o-potties encircled the entire village, but you better believe there were still lines at every single one of them), I associated with this nice old man, who happened to be running his 33rd Boston and 135th marathon!!!! And he was from Utah and ksl did a story on him and here we are!

And highlights of the race:
The start was incredible. Everyone was broken up in corrals within a wave. I was wave 2, corral 5, which meant i was just about smack dab in the middle. Good place to be.

About 50 steps in someone said, "Go Krista!" And i was all excited becuase i thought someone i knew was there cheering for me! But when I looked, i didn't recognize them! How amazed I was when someone else cheered for me by name again! It wasn't until 10 steps later when I remembered that my name was written across the front of my shirt. Oh, wonderful that shirt was!!! People cheered for ME like crazy! It was amazing!

HOLY SPECTATORSHIP! Everyone that ever said anything about the crowds being the best part of Boston was 100% right, because i have never experienced anything like it. All of Massachusetts had to be out there on the road, because there was never a non-spectator moment. And they weren't just spectators. They were little kids with hands held up for high fives, dads just yelling, "Tasha! Go Tasha! If you are out there, Go, Tasha!", sisters holding lifesize dummies of their runner, senior missionaries (I high-fived them!), mexicans ("Krrista! Go, Krrrista!") shop owners ("If you want a good view of what you look like right now, just take a look to your left at my shop window!") (I looked great. His business looked mediocre haha) and every neighbor in the world with water, oranges, power bar bits, and cheers at every turn. I never had to mentally make myself wait for the next water stop 2 miles away because anything I wanted was right there. It was amazing.


When I passed the camera at the 15k, I thought of Charina's good picture taking skills:

Other race highlights:
Peeing runners. Haha an absolute border of them lined up alongside the course for the first 2 miles.

Water stops. HOLY CUPS. The road was completely sticky for about 200 yards every mile becuase of the gatorade.

People. People. People. Look up the road. Look down the road. Look side to side on the road. You will see nothing but bobbing little running heads packed for MILES.

Dad and Mom and Bum. I saw Dad twice and Mom and Bum once and they were great cheerers!

At about mile 10 the crowds stopped cheering for Krista and just started cheering in disbelief and I couldn't figure out what was so amazing until from up behind came this little leathery tan brown man wearing a black mangy wig--and nothing else. He was naked except for his bib number and little loin cloth!!!! It was hilarious to see people's reactions, and I only wish my shirt said Jane. But I ran behind his bare little bum for 2 miles hahah!

Wellseley. I can't remember what the nickname for this portion of the race is, but at the halfway point i started noticing tons of these "Kiss Me" signs. Like, "Kiss me, I'm graduating!" or "Kiss me, I'm an English Major" or "Kiss me, I'm a red sox fan!" and in my moment of living life up in the Boston Marathon, I thought, "Next sign I see that i appreciate, I'm going to kiss the boy holding it!" hahaha but then it dawned on me that this was the famous point of the Wellsely Girls College and there would be no boys there! And there weren't- it was straight packed with girls for about a half mile, and they were all holding kissing signs and they were all screaming their heads off and it was AMAZING.

Heartbreak what? I mentally prepped myself through this whole journey for the supposed 5 miles of hills from 17-21 and as I approached 17 I got all anxious and went up one little hill but was just mentally getting focused for much harder to come. You can imagine my surprise when I finished 21 and still hadn't noticed anything and still convinced that mile 22 was the start of the infamous Heartbreak Hill--but nay! I went around a slight bend in the road only to find a ginormous inflatable arch that said "The Heartbreak is Over!" I still couldn't let myself believe that that was it, so it wasn't until like a mile later when I knew that really was it and I could thank my hilly childhood neighborhoods for the normal runs which to everyone there would've been death on earth.

Boston College. Apparently Wellesley Girls College and Boston College have a cheering competition every year. Boston College is at mile 22, right when i was really starting to get tired. They had given their student body matching sunglasses and they were the best cheerers ever! One big group even started chanting my name and I felt so endeared to them becuase they were college kids and i was a college kid and they were cheering for me, Krista! It was just the encouragement I needed!

At St. George CJ told me that Cameo said you had to be careful to remember at the last 3 miles that you still had 3 whole miles left and not let the people get you too excited, and I definitely felt it. Those were completely packed with people and all of them seemed to be saying my name, but I could not give the enthusiastic fist pump acknowledgement the rest of my kind cheerers got before. They got more of the eye-shift the Lindes got at St. George. I have never been so happy to see a finish line before. It was amazing!


But it was dead annoying becuase you can't fulfill your one and only desire and just sprawl on the ground right afterward because you are in a city and thousands of people would trample you if you did. So you just keep walking. And they wrap you in a heat sheet. And keep walking. And they put a sticker on it so you don't have to hold it. Or more like so you can grab the water. Then keep walking. And grab the gatorade. And keep walking. And get your picture taken. And keep walking. And get your carb bag. And keep walking. And want to strangle everyone who ever designed this keep walking thing. Gall of bitterness defined in the movement towards the buses to get our bags and then to find our families, but I bet we all looked hilarious staggering around. It was a moment of pure bliss when Dad finally called out and Mom waved my purse and I was done!

I RAN THE BOSTON MARATHON! It seems like nothing but a dream! It was amazing! It simply exceeded every expectation i ever even dreamed in my far fetched imaginings and I would do it again in a heart beat.

Mom and Dad and Summer were the best ever! We had so much fun and I can't thank them enough for coming.

After the race:
Summer--"Krista, krista, we gotta do this together. We gotta" hahah, Ok LaDon.....


It was simply perfect and absolutely amazing. There are no words sufficient to describe it all.


And it wore us plumb out.
But didn't stop us from visiting Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and of course, Massachusetts.
What a grand adventure. Thank you, family!


And speaking of you, family, I've a proposition.

LET'S RUN THIS HALF MARATHON TOGETHER!!!

Ok, ok, so it's sold out. But what do you think? A not Disney half-marathon would be cheaper, more realistic, and the perfect family reunion!!! I KNOW all of you could do it, and for those of you who couldn't/didn't want to, you could just wait in the big van with the chilluns for 2 hours while the rest of us do (you owe me and Sum, you know haha) CHARINA DID IT, and we all could too!

Just think about it. I will gladly make and distribute training schedules for all who desire.

One last thought to embody the greatness of this experience. I went for a haircut two days after Boston and it somehow slipped out in conversation with my hairdresser what I had done and she was pretty amazed. I paid and was walking out of the store, only to hear her say to her co-worker, "That girl ran the Boston Marathon!"

Ebullience :)