A Day of Triumph at The Boston Marathon

In the sport of marathon running, everyone is chasing the same unicorn: an elusive "BQ," two little letters that are the ticket to the starting line of the Boston Marathon. Before you can toe that line at the top of Main Street in Hopkinton, Mass., amid some 30,000 other runners, you need to achieve a Boston Qualifying time in another race. The time standard is set by the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) based on your age group.

By November, 2005, I'd already run four marathons: my first at the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. in 2001; twice at the New York Marathon in 2002 and 2003; and another at the Philadelphia Marathon in 2004. I was shaving down my finish tines with each subsequent race, improving my training, adding in strength workouts, and paying more attention to fitness and racing strategies. (I was obsessively annoying in my training pursuits and boring everyone about it.). My 2004 Philadelphia finish time was 3:54:51, faster than my first race just four years earlier by 34:49. If I could run my next marathon 4 minutes faster, I'd meet the Boston Marathon qualifying time for the 40-44 year old female age group (3:50).

The B.A.A. had not yet altered the entry requirements to make them more competitive and restrictive, where you'd need to run faster than your qualifying time to be considered. That would come 20 years later. That fall of 2005, I needed to run a race in 3:50 to earn a BQ. You even had a 59-second grace window that added a little cushion to the qualifying time.

I had trained well for Philadelphia during the summer and into the fall, and I was healthy and uninjured. I felt I was ready to focus on running a fast race. To increase my chance of success, I signed up with the 3:50 pace group at the marathon expo. Skilled "pacers" are a nice perk of competing in a big city marathon. The Philly Marathon, always held the last Sunday in November just before Thanksgiving, would have about 6,000 participants (and another 2,000 running the half marathon), and running with the pace group would help keep me on a steady pace to achieve my goal.

That cool November day, I had a good race. It was challenging to stick to an overall 8:47 minute per mile pace, but having a couple of pacers in front of me, or next to me, kept me going, especially in the tough last 6 miles, when I was feeling fatigued both physically and mentally. The pacers were bubbly, enthusiastic cheerleaders, who shouted out words of encouragement, or just chatted or joked to elevate everyone's spirits. The Philadelphia Marathon starts and finishes in front of the Art Museum on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in the heart of Philadelphia. 

There was one mile to go, and the pacers urged us to turn up our speed for our own finish. I stayed strong, eyes on the finish area in the distance. Finally, I crossed the timing pad at the finish line in 3:49:50 – my first BQ with some seconds to spare. I qualified for the Boston Marathon!

I was elated with my time. I took my medal from a race volunteer at the finish line and hung it around my neck with pride, as someone else clipped off my timing chip attached to my shoe, and I set off to find Mom, my loyal race spectator, cheering squad, and biggest supporter.

I did not immediately think, I must apply for Boston. We had to catch the train back to New Jersey, and get ready to fly out to California for our annual family gathering at Thanksgiving. So I tabled my achievement for a few days, and carried around a secret ebullience, toying with a shiny gold coin in my pocket, not sure where to spend it.

"I qualified for the Boston Marathon," I told my extended family when they asked how my race went in Philly. I hadn't said it out loud to many people, since most were not really interested in my running escapades, or yawned when I mentioned it. This was long before social media emerged for ubiquitous sharing (or over sharing) of accomplishments and I was not a member of any organized running community yet.

 “You should do it," someone said. "Maybe," I replied, not letting on that I’d already been kicking the idea around.  Did I even belong there, I wondered, amid the elite marathon runners in the oldest, and most revered annual 26.2 mile footrace in the world? Imposter syndrome filled me with doubt. 

I let the seed marinate for several days until I got back home to New Jersey. Then I sat at my computer and opened the website for the Boston Athletic Association, and clicked on the application for the 2006 Boston Marathon. "Your entry has been accepted," it said when I submitted the entry fee. "Congratulations!"

Gulp. I'm in. Now what? I had a scant 5 months to train and prepare, secure a hotel reservation, and figure out travel plans. I was nervous about what I was about to embark on. Before my other marathons, I'd talked to runners who had already done the races to learn about what to expect. But I didn't know anyone who had run Boston.

The web was youngish; there were no Facebook groups, or online running groups – only Usenet forums and message boards (way before Reddit or Google discussions). I joined them, and read up on what experienced Boston marathoners shared. I found a hotel room at The Midtown Hotel on Huntington Avenue in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. The race ends on Boylston Street, near Boston Commons, and this hotel location about a mile and a half away, while not ideal, seemed close enough. Plus, it was late to reserve lodging, and this was the last room available.

The Boston Marathon begins in the sleepy village of Hopkinton, Mass., and weaves a 26.2 mile road trip of gently rolling hills, flats, steep up hills and down hills through 8 rural towns (Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, and Brookline) until reaching the heart of Boston at the finish line on Boylston Street. The route is a net downhill race allowing for some fast speeds, but full of challenging hill climbs in the middle 6 miles as runners pass through Newton. Runners hop on a bus from Boston Common early in the morning, and wait at the athlete staging area on the football field behind Hopkinton middle/high school. The incongruity is never more apparent than on race morning when thousands of highly trained athletes disembark from yellow school buses at the school to run a world class event that starts in the tiny suburban town.

I knew I'd need to work on hill training and add to my strength routines to improve my overall fitness. My marathon training plans thus far, were pieced together from what I gleaned from several books on training, and tips from other runners. A local accomplished marathon runner I bumped into from time to time on my regular route was also a trainer, and operated a private gym nearby. I walked into his gym and asked about signing up with a personal trainer. Over the next few months, I learned better ways to strength train, specific to endurance running; how to plan out a customized marathon training schedule; how to hone in on my pacing through tempo workouts (I did my tempo runs on a treadmill to lock in my race pace) and speed drills; and how to improve my nutrition in preparation for the best outcome on race day. 

I also mapped a 6-mile steep hilly route in my town that would mimic the terrain of the Newton Hills in Massachusetts. (Livingston, N.J. is full of hills.) I ran that course once a week, running up the hills, and running down them on the other side so I'd know how much strain downhill running puts on your quads. The Boston route lets you pick up speed and time on the downhill sections, but if you're not careful, you can overrun it and pay dearly for it afterwards with sore legs. As race day approached, I felt trained and ready to take on the course in Boston. 

Mom and I traveled by Amtrak to Boston, arriving the Saturday before the race, which was Monday, April 17, 2006. Our hotel was located on Huntington Avenue, a road parallel to Boylston Street, but slightly removed from the bustle of the pre-race activities. It was rather a dive – on a par with the no-frills Best Western Mom and I stayed at in Philadelphia. This seemed to be a mecca for international runners, who buzzed to each other in the small lobby area in multiple languages. We all shared the hallway refrigerator to store water bottles and electrolyte drinks for race day.

I went to the marathon expo at the Hynes Convention Center on Saturday to pick up my bib and absorb the intoxicating energy of athletes from all over the world converging for one, shared experience. Running a marathon is a unique sporting event where amateur athletes compete on the same course as the elite, professional runners at the same time. You can't play basketball at Madison Square Garden, tennis at Wimbledon, or baseball at Fenway Park – you're just there as a spectator. But in the 110th Boston Marathon on Patriots’ Day, following in the speedy footsteps of the top men and women, I'd also be a participant.

Giddy with excitement, but equally nervous, I woke up early on race morning, and followed my now ritual pre-race preparations. Mom and I worked out our post-race meet up logistics, and I set off for the transportation area at Boston Common. I did not know about taking the “T,” Boston's subway, and figured I could walk the mile and a half from the hotel. It turned out to be a long walk, but a good, leg-loosening warm up. 

I arrived at the loading area, at the park, already a sea of runners, and boarded the next available school bus (a tradition Boston had in place for years). Everyone had a story of how they got there. I sat with a man who had run the Badwater Ultra in Death Valley but had never run a marathon. I talked to runners who had been chasing their BQ for a decade and others who were running with a charity team and had raised money for a good cause. On the walk over from the hotel, I even came upon the famous father/son duo Dick and Rick Hoyt, as they were getting into their van to leave their hotel (alas, no smart phone camera then to capture the moment and share on Instagram.)

We all arrived at the Athlete’s Village behind Hopkinton high school and walked onto a level playing field of a sort: we'd all be running the same 26.2 mile course. The distinction between the elites and the rest of the pack are the timing corrals which line up in numerical order on Main Street, with the fastest runners in front.  

The conditions were perfect for running a marathon, with calm winds, clear skies, and a cool 53° at the start. I started in the second wave (at 12:30 p.m.) in corral 19. This was the first year Boston implemented a 2-wave start, splitting the field into two 10,000 runner groups, with the first wave going off at the traditional noon starting time. Around me in my corral were runners who qualified with the same finishing time as I had, so we all ran at the same pace, more or less. Amid my corral-mates, I felt comfortable. Maybe I did belong here after all.

The gun went off, and we ran slightly uphill as we approached the starting line to begin our long trek to Boston. Your actual chip time doesn't start until you cross the timing mats, and your finish time includes a gun time, and a net time (also the first time Boston scored the race by chip time.) Everything I'd read about the race was becoming a reality. The super fast down hills, the throngs of cheering spectators sitting on lawn chairs in their driveways, the scream tunnel at Wellesley College near the halfway point, the entire population of each town watching runners pass through their community on this singular day like no other, as they have for more than a century. 

I was sticking to my meticulous race plan, eyes on the road and pace on my watch, as steady as if I had a pace team with me. If you run Boston smart, you can bank some time on the down hills, and save it up for when you'll inevitably slow down climbing the hills. My hill training paid off as I navigated the four hills in Newton, and as I approached Heartbreak Hill at mile 20, I still had life in my legs to reach the crest. My hills in New Jersey were steeper and ideal practice. I clicked off the remaining miles: Fenway Park and the Citgo sign with one mile to go; the underpass beneath the Mass Turnpike; a right on Hereford with the last incline; and a left on Boylston for the final four blocks – just 385 yards to the finish line at Copley Square near the Boston Public Library. It's electrifying. People crammed on both sides of the street screaming and cheering, engulfing me in encouragement and carrying me aloft with their positive energy. I can do this. I summoned up my hidden reserve, and ran straight to the finish banner. I heard the announcer calling out runners as they crossed the finish line. "Here comes Barbara Zirl from Livingston, New Jersey," he intoned for all to hear. I took the final step across the timing pad, pumped my arms up in triumph for the money-shot, and stopped my watch. I received my finisher’s medal and I held up the blue and gold unicorn for a photo. I made my way to the gear check, retrieved my bag, and looked for Mom at our rendezvous spot.

I finished my first Boston Marathon in 3:50:15, with another BQ, re-qualifiing and assuring myself another go at my now favorite race. I came in 11,090 out of 19,082 finishers. The winners that day finished the race hours before me. In the elite men’s race, Kenya’s Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot set a course record in 2:07:14, while on the women’s side, Rita Jeptoo, also of Kenya, won in 2:33:38. We all had personal victories in the Boston Marathon that day, and our individual journeys of 26.2 miles began with a single step.

On the train ride home, I booked a hotel room in advance for the next April.