Hamptons Marathon results and recap:
I finished with a personal record of 3:37:16.
I placed 41st overall out of roughly 300.
Fourteenth out of 137 women.
Fourth in my age group 18-24.
But most importantly WE QUALIFIED FOR THE 2010 BOSTON MARATHON.
I worried when Kate and I set out yesterday that our pace was too quick and that I might die mid-race, and at mile eleven she cruised ahead, leaving me alone to ponder my mortality and the sandy highway shoulders. But by mile fifteen with the Napeague Bay behind me, the sun high, and the East End scout troops unleashing a (welcome) torrent of Gatorade, I realized that no matter how slowly I shuffled to the finish line I would still make Boston time. I caught up with Kate twenty minutes later (whom, I might add, finished her first marathon in an astonishing three hours and 35 minutes despite ignoring all the rules about training, thus cementing her status as a total fucking bad ass). Not once in 26.2 miles did I stop or slow to a walk.
I used to tell people that my dream was to run Boston, that I hoped someday to just qualify. I assumed that I would need to wait until I had a husband and children already in school, that I would need time and resources to hire a coach, wake before dawn, really focus and devote my life to the sport.
But I didn’t expect it to happen yesterday.
