So my ride finally arrived the day of the Marathon! ;-)
George and his friend picked me up and after a couple of pics we headed out to Hopkington. Amazingly, instead of being stopped by police officers as we got closer to Hopkington they were actually waving us through! Maybe it was the 'Mayor' sign I put on the roof. ;-) We actually drove OVER the start line and were dropped off at the Athletes' Village and that is were George, me, and 30,000+ other runners would cool are heels until the start of the race. It was basically 2+ hours of trying to stay off your feet, out of the sun, and hydrating/porta-potty runs. As the start time for my Wave/Corral approached (the last one!) I could feel the sun baking on my shoulders and neck. It was going to be brutal.
So we headed down to the start line and there was a nervous energy on the course and plenty of excited volunteers and supporters along the way. I can't begin to say how much work the BAA and the DMSE team put into this event and all the communities along the way really made it special. We were now 100 yards from the start line so I put my blindfold on and with a CrossFit 3.2.1 Go! we were off.
Now this is where it gets interesting. I never really looked around me to take the 'scene' into my mind's eye but as soon as I was without sight my mind/memory turned into an audio track. Every sound, every feeling was amplified. It was really conjested and I spent more time moving around people than moving forward. One challenge that I didn't consider was that running side-by-side made it tough for us to get around people, especially if I was drifting away from George making us 3 people wide. The first couple of miles flew by because we never saw them in the chaos of people but I knew when someone mentioned we were passed 2K we were well into it and I needed to be smart about hydration/pace. When we passed the 5K mark I told George we had just beaten our personal best which had been 5K blindfolded. Every victory was momentus. The rest/water stops were our biggest time suck. Navigating into/thru/out of them was really challenging but I knew fueling a great run was as important as the mental and physical challenges. I can honestly say that I ran two marathons that day, and George and my other Guides can attest to this, I ran as much laterally left/right as I did forward. During George's first half of the marathon we were shifting tons but my body was responding well. Every mile we passed we celebrated and just kept on moving. Everything was going according to plan and anything that wasn't we just adjusted and pushed on. What was really amazing for me was all the support and inspiration we got from fellow runners and spectators along the run. They cheered for us, told us how incredible we were for what we were doing, etc. Truth is they inspired me tremendously and their words and cheers re-fueled my mission. We successfully made it over a bunch of railroad tracks in Framingham (which I have previously wiped out HARD on my bike... in fact on the car ride in before the race we passed some folks that had been bloodied up pretty good by the tracks so I was sure to play it safe in that section). Just past the 15K mark (WHAT?!?! We are already 9 miles into the run?!?! Time flys when you are on a mission!!) we could hear the thunderous cheering of CrossFit New England (CFNE) and I can tell you the pounding that my upper body was taking from the tether and leading would have crushed me if not for CrossFit. I could hear the distinctive voice of Ben Bergeron and felt a sea of hands celebrating one of their own. I just had to do the first blindfolded burpee (which I had practiced for fear of smashing my face on the road) and with an epic roar and some ice in hand I was off and inspired. Further down the road George met his wife Erin and their three beautiful daughters. I hope they read this someday or hear the story. George had a HUGE challenge to face and he covered the most distance of all my Guides. He has guided me before and was the first to volunteer to do it again. He is absolutely amazing! Once we left George's family I could feel my body/mind sense that we had stopped why shouldn't it do the same. I told George we better keep moving and move we did until we met my second Guide, Laurie Diamond at Wellesley College.
Highlights of George (Start-20K)
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