The whole week before race day the weather forecast went between rain and partly cloudy. The morning of the weather was still looking a little iffy, so I went ahead and threw my phone into a snack sized ziploc bag (seriously, I have them stashed everywhere because they fit the iPhone 8 perfectly) while doing my usual pre-race prep. I headed out to the T from our AirBnB armed with my smooth caffeinator picky bar and cherry limeade nuun (in a larger than usual water bottle since it's all we could find at Trader Joe's) and hopped onto the first train that came through the station.
After arriving at the station where the race had shuttles ready and waiting, I noticed another girl wearing a Oiselle singlet and ran up to say hi. It was another girl that I had messaged back and forth with on Instagram because it turned out we had a mutual friend and were from the same area! (Yay! A semi familiar face!)
Once we arrived to the starting area, I was really impressed with the setup. There were tents all over the place with vendors, including Clif Bar, which was handing out all kinds of samples of products. I shoved a bunch of samples into my bag that I used for bag check, and we checked out the B.A.A. merch tent. I was incredibly disappointed--there were only jackets for the half marathon, and some Boston Qualifier merchandise. I was hoping for something small like a hat, socks or something, but they didn't have anything like that. Walking away a little disappointed, we split up for our respective bag checks. (Since I did the Distance Medley, I had the extra perk of a separate tent with pre and post race snacks, coffee, water and its own bag check!) After tossing my bag in a pile in front of the number series including my bib number, I went back to meet up with my friend and we decided to get in line for the portajohns since the lines were getting long. Once we were next up in line, we wished each other luck and went our separate ways to use the facilities and line up in our respective corrals. And of course take some pre-race selfies.
And then I started the long(ish) trek to the start line. I had no idea how close (or far) we were, I just followed the crowd and I knew we were getting close once I saw people start to raise their phones to take pictures of the starting line. (Short people problems.)
From there on out the race was kind of a blur. It was one of my slower times, but like I said I decided to treat it like a training run. The course itself was pretty scenic with rolling hills and went along a golf course for the later half. The rain that I had been watching for the last few days started at mile 10 for a few minutes, then really started pouring by mile 11. As if my IT Band wasn't already screaming (and had been since mile 3), the rain made me feel even more ready to be done.
The final mile was through the Franklin Park Zoo, which was awesome because by that point I (and my IT band) were ready to be done. So during my walk breaks I had a fun time looking at some of the animals. The race was also pretty competitive and came in among the last 500 runners of about 6,300 finishers. (And my time wasn't that bad considering my injury--I finished in 2:48:43.)
After crossing the finish line, I received medals for both the half marathon and for finishing the distance medley. I came across a couple of photographers and got my picture taken with my medals (the one I came across insisted I do a picture where I'm biting the medal.) And then headed to the food since at that point since I was hungry. They had b.good there, but by that point they had run out of hamburger buns so I tossed a burger patty into a bowl and put some ketchup and mustard on it, grabbed a bagel, banana, gatorade and a bottle of water and headed towards the Distance Medley tent to get my bag.
Once I had my bag in hand, I started to stretch a little bit while getting bites of my burger and bagel. At this point it was still pouring and I could see my husband out in the rain (the volunteers wouldn't let him in) so I kept it quick. I was also SUPER ready to head back to our Air BnB, get a shower, take a nap and then head out to dinner. Where I ate this.
The most amazing fried pickles and ranch ever at Buttermilk and Bourbon!! Just the right amount of salty, spice and vinegary goodness to help stave off any potential post-race cramps. (Science!)
Overall, I'm not sure if I would do this race again if I wasn't in it for the Distance Medley swag or coming in from out of town. It was fun getting the weekend away and having an excuse to do so, but the race was very competitive. I'm not usually so slow, but it was a little discouraging to come in so close to the end of the race altogether.
The shirt and the medals were really nice and this time the shirt was a color that I would actually wear! The design is similar to the other shirts, but this one is a navy blue long sleeved tech shirt instead of short sleeved with the race logo in a lighter blue across your back and shoulders. One of the pluses though was getting my bib mailed to me in advance so I didn't have to worry about getting to a packet pickup. All I had to worry about picking up was my shirt on race morning, and they still had plenty available.
Also, there is a stunning lack of B.A.A. merchandise available. I happened to have time to get to Adidas Runbase store on Boylston, and found a B.A.A. half marathon jacket and maybe one shirt with the B.A.A. logo on it, and just about everything else is from this year's Boston Marathon. (And not even marked down 6 months post-race!) As a Distance Medley participant, I also had the option of buying a hoodie with the race series logo on it, but it could only be pre-ordered and you could only see pictures of it prior to picking it up. On top of that, the hoodies were a final sale so if you didn't like it, you're out of luck! (For something that would set me back over $100, I want to get my hands on it first.)
Have you run this race? What did you think of it?
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