"Ay I'm Walk'n Here" in Boston

Well as luck would have it I was recently selected to be on the Disabled Veterans Working Group at work and just in the nick of time. On the first conference call I was on they discussed having a Working Group Meeting in New Hampshire. That excited me because I had never been to New Hampshire, but then it changed to Boston. Yeah, it had been 17 years since I last visited Boston, during the Army AIT training. My luck continued as they week that was booked was the week after the Air Force Marathon, this was lucky only until I found out the protocol of Government travel from point to point destination. So after much negotiation with our employee travel person at the VA I bought a ticket from Dayton, OH to Boston, MA with the understanding that I would be at least partially reimbursed for the ticket. Renae was also excited because she had never been to Boston and decided to come visit Thursday and then I would stay two additional days and we would fly home on Sunday. As I got there the Sunday after the Air Force Half Marathon I was ready to crash, but I walked around the hotel a bit to get my bearings. Ate at PF Changs and watched some football on TV. The next day, Monday, was our travel day and as I was already there decided to go get my Hard Rock Cafe pin. But before I headed off downtown I asked the front desk at the hotel if there was a running route that she could point me to. Wow, they actually had a 4 mile and 6 mile route that she gave me. I ate breakfast and headed off for a 4 mile run. Truly Boston is a running and cycling city. Most of my run was along sidewalks and I met no less than 100 people out running too. As I really didn't know where I was going and was reading the directions as I ran, not to mention jumping around people exiting buildings I walked some and ran some. I nearly managed to end up in the Charles River while reading my directions. But I found my way around the loop and made it back to the hotel. I showered and headed off for adventure. I managed to get my mass transit ticket with a little help from the transit guy and was on my way. The hotel, Sheraton Boston Hotel, gave me general directions to HRC. So I got to Gov't Center, Quincy Market, and Fanueil Hall and was overwhelmed by the number of people on a Monday wandering around. Needless to say while the HRC was in the general area I had some difficulties finding it but was not afraid to ask directions. I was only a block off and was soon siting down to Hawaiian Chicken and picking out my guitar pins.
I got back to the hotel and started looking for things to do once Renae got into town on Thursday. She said she had wanted to go to a comedy show so I found a show at the Comedy Vault off of Boylston across from Boston Common. I pretty much rested the rest of Monday so that I would be with it on Tuesday for our meeting.

Tuesday morning I was at the appointed place at the appointed time and met the rest of my group. It was great meeting these people as it felt like the group was alive which is more than I can say for several meetings I've gone to. Several of them wanted to go to a Red Sox game that evening and initially I declined, I mean really I don't know these people. But then I was like, "What the hell, they are veterans too and they seem fun." So I took off with them walking to Fenway Park after our work day had ended. They were funny guys I bought my ticket off a authorized scalper (not sure what that meant, but Fenway actually had a spot for those who were approved to resell their tickets) for a standing room only nonseat. We ate at one of the street vendors in which I managed to get mustard all over Harvey's hotdog, that will probably be the last time he asks me to help him, lol. We headed off to find our seats and I was going to hang with the guys until the game started then head off to find my seat. We were right above the Orioles pitching dugout and I ended up just sitting in an empty seat with the guys. Funny thing is they paid 38 dollars for their tickets and I paid 20 dollars. I didn't much pay attention to the guy except when Bill kept yelling "He is going to hit the ball right to us" then Ed would say "Every man and woman for themselves". So obviously I got ready to knock the old man down to catch a ball, but a ball was never hit to us. That was a fun night but really late, Ed then started a joke that I ate all the time because every time he looked over at me I was eating something plus everyone piled their trash in front of my feet. So the next couple of days we worked on what we wanted the group to accomplish. Then it was Thursday and Renae was scheduled to get into town at 415pm. We had tickets to the Comedy Vault at 8 so when she got in we headed downtown to walk around a bit. I was now a pro at hoping on and off the subway knowing which direction I was going. We ate at Remingtons on Boylston as the Comedy Vault was in the basement. That was the first bad sign, not good enough to be on the main floor. Renae enjoyed her clam chowda' and we walked around the area waiting until we could be seated. The Comedy Vault probably seated 40 people maximum and as we had reservations and were the first ones there they asked if we wanted to sit alone or with a group, alone, hello. So the guy at the door pointed us in a general direction and we sat down, he then got in trouble for not "front loading" the seating area as we sat two tables back from the stage, red flag number two. Red flag number 3 is there was only one local patron of the club that night and 22 out of staters. So the show got started and the Emcee announced the main guy who came out and every other word was "Fu**". I nearly stroked out watching a girl from Connecticut and a girl from Georgia, that was funny. The guy not so much, well really not at all. They had like 5 people do stand up and only one of them was funny. I tried to escape to the bathroom but as I was walking back up the hall they opened the curtain and ushered me back in, blasted. So it got done around 930pm and we made it back to the hotel by about 1030p.

Friday morning we decided to go for a run on the 4 mile loop that I had found. But because of the condition of the path we were using Renae wasn't able to relax so we decided to walk. When we got back to the hotel it was near lunch time so I took Renae over to McGreevey's an awesome Irish Sports Bar. Once finished with lunch we headed to the Wharf area where we thought we might get some seafood. We walked past the old YMCA where as a young soldier we would stay when visiting Boston. That was on the way to where the Cassin Young and "Old Iron Sides" is moored. We toured around there and decided instead of walking back we would take a water taxi to the Aquarium which was back down by Fanueil Hall. While waiting for the evening to progress so we could eat supper we found a fruit/veg market and got some fruits. Earlier in the day we had also booked a performance at the Boston Center for Arts called the "Real Inspector Hound". We ate supper at the Charter House and I was able to eat crab and Renae had another cup of Chowda'. It was then 10 till 7pm and our performance started at 8pm. Luckily we decided to head back to the hotel before going to the show because it wasn't where I thought the Center was located. It was instead a 15-20 min walk from the hotel not close to any subway station. So with it being 720pm we walked with a purpose to the Center. This show must have been aimed at those brainy types because I didn't get most of the humor and dialogue of the play. But it was awesome watching the audience. We then walked back to the hotel and it was 10pm. We passed a spooky looking church and made up some stories.....awesome way to pass time at 10pm when it dark out.

Saturday we decided to hit the pool and hot tub first before venturing out into the city. It was nice to soak the feet and legs after two days of walking around. We decided to hit some of the parks and Little Italy today so headed off seeking adventure and boy did we find some. We watched people sunbath in a park, played in a fountain, and found the most wonderful Italian eating place called L'Conte which I would recommend 100 times over. I believe it is on Salem street. We then partook in some Gelato I got Snicker and Renae got German Chocolate Cake. We wondered around and found some churches to look at and then started walking to the subway station to go to the Public Gardens. Outside Little Italy was a bicycle rickshaw and we asked how much it would cost for a ride to the Garden and decided to do it. What fun that was he was weaving in and out of traffic like we owned the road, a couple of times I thought we might have to get out and push, but he made it fine. We walked into the Gardens and literally saw 9 weddings or wedding parties going on, it was funny. Renae and I tried to get into as many wedding photo's as possible, lol. We turned in early on this date we were full and exhausted. We got back to the hotel around 7pm. Our flight was to leave at 3pm on Sunday.

We didn't do to much on Sunday another dip in the hot tub and then Brunch at McGreevey's. Renae was disappointed they weren't serving lunch because she wanted to try their Bangers and Mash but now she will have to wait till Ireland next year. It was an awesome trip and I will get pictures posted later.

Air Force Half Marathon Sept 18th, 2010

All of us after the run, nice compression socks, I want some.

Renae near the end of the half marathon.

Last Wednesday Renae and I flew to Canton, OH in prep for the Air Force Half Marathon in which my sister and brother in law would be running the full marathon. I got to spend some much needed time with my niece and nephew. Thursday after they got out of school Renae and I took them to Build-a-Bear, then Cold Stone for some ice cream, Borders (got some books), and then Chuck'E Cheese. What a fun night.

We headed to Dayton after walking the kids to school, mom came with us to Dayton. We got to eat at Cracker Barrel and I stopped by my house in Grove City outside of Columbus. We got checked into the hotel and then headed to Wright Pat to get our race packets and Renae was running the 5K. I know, crazy, huh the day before running a half marathon. I bought some Vibram fivefingers at the expo, mom didn't like the color of them but they go with my running gear.

We watched the Air Force Drill Team perform and the posting of colors. There were 1800 registered runners for the 5K, yet they still had to make announcements that kids needed to move to the rear of the pack. With that being said when the base commander said racers to the ready, a 70 something year old lady lined up in the front line in a racing position with her fingers on her watch just like everyone else in the front line, however, when the commander said go the old lady don't drilled, smashed, and crushed. I almost laughed if it weren't sad that a 70 year old lady thought she should be up front with the 5 min per mile runners. Anyway I predicted that Renae would be in around 40 min or later so mom and I lined up at the finish line and watched people finish the race. The first runner came in at 16'37' crazy I tell you. Not to long after that mom said, "I see Renae". I looked up and saw the time was 35 min and I said no way, but then here came Renae running towards the finish line. She crossed at like 36,45". She said she would have been sooner except a lady collapsed in front of her and she had to help her down to the ground. When I asked how long she was with the lady she said about 3 minutes. Yeah Renae.

So we met up with Jeff after they got into town and decided that we would leave for the base at 0530 in the morning. We followed the directions given to us at the race expo which was given to 8000 other people. We made it to Hartman Road just fine but then ran into the a line of traffic within a mile and sat there until about 0635. Jeff and Christi rightfully got anzy and decided to bail. They started walking to the base and called and told us what was going on. We got onto the base and got parked about 0700 hours. We made it up close to the start line and heard the gun go off signalling the start of the marathon. We hoped that Christi and Jeff made it to the start before the marathon started. We waited in line for the bathrooms about 40 minutes.

Renae and I then made our way over to our start line and found our pacing team leader Kristen from Columbus, OH. She said she had run 26 marathons. We were in the 2h30min pace group. We started way back in the pack and didn't cross the start line for 5 min or so after the gun went off. It's been a long time since I've run in a pack that had no real formation, matter of fact I don't remember the last time I felt like a gazelle running in a herd. But quite literally for the first 3 miles we were grouped so tightly that it was hard to not get stepped on I hopped and slide and did a tango with 250 other people. It would have been much easier had we been running in formation to a cadence. Our pace group in the first three miles was averaging between 10 and 11 min miles. I managed to stay with the pace group until about mile 4.8 when I was exhausted. I walked and ate/drank a gel and then started running again. I finished 5 miles under 55 min so knew that I was on pace to finish under 3 hours if I could keep forcing myself to run when I wanted to walk. I was able to reach mile 9 by 1h50m so had 70 min to finish 4 miles. Mile 9 I'm not sure where we were in relation to the base but it seemed like we were running on a highway right in side the gate (which gate I'm not sure but it had a beat the gate sign). This hill was incredible and I walked the entire way up but then was able to run down it. At mile 9 they had orange halves and that kinda revived me. By the time I hit mile 10 I was seeing some of the people from my pace group so was feeling a little bit better. There was another hill shortly after mile 10 and I just put my head down and powered/willed myself running up it. We then ran back onto base around mile 11 and I knew I was almost there. I started looking for Christi as she was scheduled to finish right around the same time I would if I kept up my pace. When I was at mile 11 I was like 2h20min into my run. I had aspirations to finish at 2h45m at this time but wasn't sure if I could keep running as fast as I had been. As we rounded into the runway area around mile 12 was getting more and more energy even bending over a couple of times to pick up whole gel packs that people had dropped. I saw mom and the kids at mile 12.25 and ran over to give them hugs. I then started running harder because I knew I was almost done.

The last 3/4 of a mile was killer for me because we were on the tarmac and it was hot and falsely marked. As I hit the sign that said mile 13 I started running harder but realized that the sign was wrong because I ran another 4/10 of a mile after that sign. There were thousands of people cheering on the runners as we got to the finish line. I crossed at 2h50m15s and a full bird colonel placed my medal around my neck and then suddenly I saw my sister. She asked if I had seen Jeff, but I pretty much ran with my head down for the last 2 miles at least. I went and got some water and then stood with Christi waiting for Renae and Jeff. It seemed like it was forever that we were waiting but in reality Renae came in 13 min after I did. I needed to go use the bathroom so Renae and I sat down on the grass near the porta janes and waited for Jeff to come in. Jeff finished about 30 min after Renae.

Next was the process of hooking back up with mom and the kids and walking the 1.2 miles from the finish to where the car was parked, YIKES. I send Jeff and Christi off to catch up with mom as they needed to check out of the hotel. Renae and I walked/shuffled/zombied to the car and eventually found our way to the car and made it off the base. Yeah.