Boston Marathon
So today Tim (from NEC) and I did the Marathon route. We started around 6:45 from the finish line and rode to the start, turned around, and rode back to the finish. At least that was the plan.
The early start of the marathon this year really messed me up. Normally, I can get out to Hopkinton, poke around for a bit, then get back before most of the race has started, but this year, the wheelchairs set off at 9:30! Yipes! We got to the start line around 9:10 or so and the swat team in black were setting off to sweep the start of the race just as we got there, so we had to turn around and set off immediately. We didn’t even get to the actual starting line.
One thing about those wheelchairs, they are fast, fast, fast. Amazingly fast. I swear their arms must look like Popeye’s. Anyway, they caught up to us at Wellesley Center and we were kicked off the route and had to thread our way back a different way.
I took my GPS but, you know, I’ve never been able to figure the thing out. Well, I can figure the GPS out, but when I try to download to route to Topo USA, it never works right, so I don’t have the actual stats or route from that. Or maybe I do. I don’t know. I can’t tell. I do know that my cyclometer says we went a few yards short of 60 miles. It was a fairly slow ride, overall, because we had to thread through some pretty thick crowds on the way back. The GPS says we went 57.9, moving average of 12.0, overall average of 9.3, moving time of 4:48, stopped time of 1:26. I was starting to run out of gas there towards the end. I took my camera, too, but took one picture at the beginning of the day and the battery went out. Not my day for equipment, I guess. The bike performed very well, though.
Got back shortly after noon, had (too much) lunch, then a shower, then a nap. It was a great day, starting out pretty cool and cloudy but relatively windless. It became sunnier, but never got hot. My legs are tired. It was nice having someone to ride with. He rides and more-or-less my speed and is a good conversationalist.
I still haven’t figured why they started the thing so early. I guess next year I’ll have to start at 6:00, but it’s barely even light then.
