Wellesley through Newton

    So here it is ... crunch time.  The point in the race that gives Boston its allure and separates it from the hundreds of other marathons around the world.  Its a well known fact that most people "hit the wall" between miles 17 and 21 ... which is why the Boston Marathon is so brutal.  Its during this critical time that runners encounter the rolling hills of Newton and the infamous "Heart Break Hill".  While Heart Break Hill describes a certain portion of the race between miles 20-21 ... to the actual runner it encompasses four long inclines that span from the Newton Fire Station (mile 17.5) to Boston College (mile 21).  This is where your diligent training and running of hills will finally pay off ... unfortunately for me I didn't have a chance to incorporate this type of distance / hill running into my training due to my knee issues.   I was a prime set up for failure on heart break hill ...
     In comes my second strategy for completing this race.  Like I said at the beginning, finishing this race was as much a test of mental toughness and conditioning as it was a test of strategic planning.  I knew I didn't have the amount of long distance training that it would require for me to run the entire race and because of that I knew that I would end up walking at times.  My strategy for this was to walk up the hills in Newton in order to conserve as much energy as I could to do well on the flat / downhill portions of the race that remained.  While it wasn't how I pictured myself doing this race 5 months ago, with all the issues I had with my training it was what I was left with.
      As I made the right hand turn at the Newton Fire Station I could see the daunting hill in front of me.  I made sure to run to the base of it and then transitioned into a fast walk.  I felt bad walking especially since people on the side of the course kept cheering me on, but I knew it was what I had to do to finish the race.  I tried to power walk up the hills with my goal being to keep my pace below a 15 min / mile.  At a couple of points, these hills are so steep that it was even difficult to do that and I found my pace slipping to 17 min / mile.
      To complicate things, this was the point in the race that I really started to feel everything.  Even though I still had 9 miles to go until I reached the finish line, I had already run 2 miles further than I had ever run in my whole entire life!!  It was on these hills that I really started to feel everything.  The hills really brought out a severe ache in both of my hips / groin muscles.  At times, my left hip began to cramp up and I actually had to stop once to stretch it out.
      Once I reached the flat parts after these hills I made sure to get back into a run.  The first few steps after starting to run seemed to kill, especially on the bottom of my feet, but once I got those first steps out of the way I actually felt pretty good.  I was totally exhausted, but kept telling myself to hang in there ... keep moving forward ... get to the next hill and then you can walk.  And that is what I did.  The only problem was that every time I started to walk, things started to tighten up.  I am not sure if it was the 2nd or 3rd hill, but during one of them I started to get some cramps in my neck and back.  I tried to stretch them out but really the only thing that helped them was to start jogging again.
     These were definitely the longest miles of the course.  I looked around and saw some people jogging up the hills, but even the people that were jogging didn't seem to be going that much faster than I was.  It is definitely a brutal portion of the course that tests everyone's physical and mental toughness.  While I may not have had to physical conditioning to run up the hills, I had brainwashed myself for months about what I would tell myself when I got to this point ... "It doesn't matter how you are doing it, just keep moving forward".  That's what got me through this point.
      It was on one of these hills that I saw one of my two favorite signs from the whole race.  One lady on the left side of the road had a sign that said "You are no longer a runner ... You are a marathoner".  I still get chills just thinking about that sign.  It was hard to believe ... but I was slowly becoming a marathon runner.  
      After 4 of the toughest miles that I have endured, I reached the top of "Heart Break Hill" and saw BC college which had a huge inflatable sign that said "Heart Break Hill is Over" ... I can't tell you how happy that made me feel.

You can see the inclines starting at mile 17.5.  While they don't look that daunting on this graph, each one is a steady half mile incline where you gain 50-100 ft of vertical elevation.

"Heart Break Hill".  This one is a killer ... it honestly hurt to walk up it at this point in the race.

My pace definitely had slowed a little bit, but I was still digging it out.

This was my second favorite sign that I saw on the marathon course!  I wish that was the reason, but nonetheless it served for a good laugh.

Like I said, I was going to be walking some of the course.  Here is a shot of me walking, but I am doing my best to make sure that I am walking at as fast of a pace as I could. 

Diagram of what was hurting me at this point of the race.  Like I said, the hills really took their toll on my hip flexors and that is where I really started to feel it.  In addition, my neck and upper back cramped up.  The thickness of the arrows depicts which ailment bothered me more (thicker the arrow, the worse it was).