After days of alternating between obsessing over race day weather predictions and telling myself the weather doesn’t matter, it turns out that weather was one of the main characters in the theatre of Boston Marathon 2019, as it was in 2018.

I left the hotel to walk the 1km trip to the buses just as the thunderstorm was in full swing. I had my disposable poncho on and my shoes had a water-proofing cobbled from bin liners and band-aids. As I stepped outside my disposable poncho got a panic attack and violently tried to leave me. I restrained it and pushed on anyway. The bin liners also rebelled and started to collect water as I walked the brick footpath over historic Beacon Hill. I decided not to remove them – maybe it was better than nothing and I didn’t want to stop anyway. I figured I wouldn’t finish the race until 6 hours from now and hoped my feet could handle that.

I boarded one of the many Simpson’s-style yellow school buses and we quickly headed off to the start point at Hopkinton. The bus was oppressively hot and steamy and we couldn’t open the windows because of the rain.

When we arrived near the athlete’s village many runners were desperate to find the toilets or a tree or, for one lady, the side of the path we all walked down.

The toilets were arrayed along a roadway on the far side of a boggy field full of athletes doing that weird walk where they stand on one leg, search for less soft ground and then transfer to the other leg. Arms waving for balance and frustrated gasps as feet disappeared. I stupidly joined them, relying on my bin liners and then realising one had torn apart and my left black shoe was now brown. Hmmmm.

I went back to the roadway and followed runners to discover the bog turned to grass and I started kicking myself for not going straight here. I decide to line up again for toilets in the grass area and managed to clean and dry my shoes a bit with toilet paper. Weirdly, the portaloos had no running water so no flushing or sink, and the hole in the toilet seat looked down on a huge pile of… well.. at least the paper I was using to clean my shoes didn’t look out of place when I threw it in.

The call for my wave had already happened so I immediately started the long walk to the starting area, and the rain stopped. Yay! We were all pretty happy about that.

I should mention that I must have passed hundreds of volunteers by now, from bib collection to getting on and off buses, and collecting discarded warm clothing and rubbish along the way.

After the start, I immediately realised how well matched I was to all the other runners around. The road was completely full, but everyone was keeping the same pace. It was a nice downhill so I was feeling very cruisy and very happy to finally be running. The course is quite beautiful as it winds left and right past small lakes and little towns. Most of the trees looked like birch trees that had lost all their leaves and the houses were mostly two-story neat little weatherboard houses with shingle roofs and no fences.

It wasn’t long before it started to feel hot. The sun was evaporating all the rainwater and the humidity was very high. The weather prediction was 19’C and the time now was about 11 am so I assume it must be close to that temperature. Some rain would be welcome now, but I wouldn’t see any until just after my race. I choose to empty drinking water on my head when I could.

The Boston crowds were amazing. They seemed to be continuous the whole way and were shouting encouragement and holding funny signs. There were quite a few unauthorised drink tables set up with some local politician’s picture or business name there. There were odd bands playing and one guy sat at a drumkit on his front porch and was going for it, occasionally sparing one drumstick to point to lucky runners like me during his routine.

The Wellesley College girls stood out as the most excited as we ran past the aptly-named “Scream Tunnel” and some runners stopped to give occasional quick kisses – I opted to just blow a kiss to avoid looking creepy. 

I heard a runner come up to me and say without an accent “Hey, Running in the Burbs – you’re from Melbourne!”. She was also from Melbourne. We chatted a bit more before it became obvious her preferred pace was faster. At this point I was running easily, no part of me was tired. I was smiling and enjoying the whole experience immensely.

I had been a bit surprised at the number of hills on the course. I would go slower on the uphills and faster on the downs to maintain my target 4:50 pace up to the 23km point. Despite the unexpected hills, I was feeling good so I decided to follow my plan to increase my pace a bit over the next few kms and gradually brought my average pace down to 4:49 and then 4:48. At around 29k the hills started to bite so I went to plan B and slowed down to a 4:50 average for today.

Eventually, and despite my specific training to prevent this, I reached that seemingly inevitable point where it started getting really hard to maintain that pace. I tried some positive thinking tricks “I am strong” “pain is ok” “I can do this” etc but I kept struggling more and more. By 40km mark I was well into Boston and the crowds were huge but my slightly annoying stitch slowly turned into the worst stitch I have ever had and I just couldn’t run any more. I allowed myself to walk a few steps along the fence where everyone was shouting “support”. I tried every technique I knew but it was just agony. At this point, we passed Fenway Park where the Red Socks had just finished and the crowd is huge and loud. I hated them at that point.

Eventually, after some rounds of walking then shuffling, the pain abated slightly and I picked up my pace. My muscles were still working but now my back was hurting in sympathy with my gut. What was that about? What else will start hurting? I held onto that saying that “The Shuffle” will get you home so I just shuffled until I passed the finish line at 3:38. 

I had told myself before that under 3:40 would be ok, but had no appreciation then how hot and hilly it was.

I walk through to where the volunteers were handing out space blankets and I admit I really enjoyed the momentary hug I received as it was draped over me. A bit more walking and I received my medal, and I noticed some others also getting their Abbotts medal for finishing all 7 majors. They can have it – I wouldn’t want to go through that too many times.

Eventually I find my wife Bernice and brother-in-law Tim and just keep walking in a bit of a daze past the many people saying congratulations, past many daffodils in flowerpots that somehow represent the race, past the park full of impossibly-cute squirrels, to the old subway train feeling pretty faint and wobbly and eventually arrive back at our hotel, have a nap, and suddenly realise that I had just done the Boston Marathon…. and that I was really hungry.

Relive Michael’s marathon journey here.