No serious SLG'er needs reminding that a select group of members ran the Boston marathon on April 20th. Although we can all agree that it will be hard to recapture the SLG-spirit of the 2006 Chicago marathon, we came pretty close in Boston.
The city looked at its best in the days proceeding the marathon. The temperatures were mild, the blossoms were out and the arriving runners were trying on their Boston marathon gear.
Dora, Clem and I arrived on Friday, Gil, his sister Gloria and Stefan joined us on Saturday. We had breakfast together, went to the expo to pick up our gear, went for a prerequisite warmup run and of course there was the pasta dinner on Sunday night. In case you don't remember, the Boston marathon is run on Patriot's day, a holiday in Massachusettes which falls on a Monday. We headed out to "La Dolce Vita" in the little Italy of Boston and everybody seemed to be in great spirits!
Monday morning dawned a bit chilly, cloudy but dry. Team SLG headed to the loading area for the buses to be transported to the starting line in Hopkinton. The loading went without a hitch and in record time. While driving to the start, everybody seemed to be sobered by how far 26.2 miles seemed to be. And we had to run this distance back, all the way to Boston!!
Once in the staging area, there was not a whole lot of time to kill and most of it was spent standing in line for the bathrooms. Some fighter jets flew over the staging area, right before the start and the announcer got everybody's attention when he announced 12 seconds later that these same fighter jets had crossed the finish line at Copley Square!
All of a sudden, we had to hurry to get to the starting corrals and before we knew it the race was on its way. And what a race it was. Everybody seemd very pleased with the results.
Clem, who had had some miserable performances last year and had even briefly considered retiring before reaching his 100th marathon, was in fine form and beat us all in 3:34:22. Run as a true super coach! Congratulations to Clem. Gloria was right on his heels though and finished in 3:34:35. A P.R. for her and obviously she became a very serious candidate to be accepted as a full SLG member! If only she hadn't gone back to retrieve an ADVIL she dropped, she might have beaten Clem. Ahh... the curse of the Perrones. If only their performances were not so tainted by drugs. Then of course there is the other Perrone. Once again, Gil had endured a number of injuries but he endured and trained through the pain. He realized he would not be able to put down a top performance. Instead he ran a relaxed and smart race and finished in a 3:47:12! Too bad he has now officially retired from marathon running. He will be missed in the SLG marathons. and I think he still has some marathons left in him.
Lief ran 3:56:48 which was her best perfermance since Chicago in October 2006. Stefan did great and although the hilly course seems to have traumatized him a bit, he finished in a strong 4:12:40.
Dora, who called the course a roller coaster without a loop-de-loop, got sick during the race but finished in a happy 4:48:57
The post race party was hosted by Gloria in the corporate lounge of the Marriott hotel. That gracious gesture will not be ignored when the founding fathers consider her application for membership.
A collective runner's high became apparent quite early during the party with talk of completing the Big 5 and going to London next spring....
The next big event was the Long Branch, New Jersey half marathon, which took place on May 3rd. SLG first participated in that event in 2006, and our team immediately made it to the postcard advertising the event for the next year. Gil has been especially succesful in this race, finishing 2nd in his age category three years in a row. The other great thing about the NJ half is the post race party hosted by Erik and Wendy. The spread these two put on is amazing and truly one of the great feasts of the year.
Although we wondered whether we were just a bit too full of ourselves running a half two weeks after a marathon, the runners high we had gotten in Boston was still lingering. The biggest news about this event though was the debut of Wendy, who had taken up running only a few months before, had never run a race in her life and the longest run she had ever done was 10 miles.
Once again, the SLG'ers started right in the front and the four of us ran truly exellent races.
Although Gil was a bit slower than last year, his 1:34:49 was finally good enough for 1st place in his age category and he left his nearest competitor in the dust by more than a minute. Lief had started out with a goal of beating her Boston half marathon time of 1:53:44 which turned out to be an easy thing to do. Finishing in 1:49:29, the first time she had broken 1:50 in almost 3 years. Stefan was very happy with his 1:52:27 and Wendy's debut was amazing. Although she had predicted a time between two and a half and three hours, (which kept me looking for her in the pouring rain for over half an hour) she finished in an astonishing time of 2:12:22. Congratulations to Wendy!!! She immediately signed up for the next big SLG event, the NYC half marathon on August 16th.
In recent years, this event in New Jersey has grown extremely rapidly and it has become somewhat of a logistical nightmare to get to the start and to get out of the area after the race. SLG has therefore this will no longer be an SLG sanctioned race unless the organizers at Long Branch provide us with VIP transportation to the start. If that is denied, we are skipping the race and heading straight to the Sevenants home for the after race party!
Finally, I am getting to the final but very important chapter of this already too long posting. Tomorrow, the spring race season will come to a close with a new but very important event. There will be a one on one battle between Stefan and Lief in the healthy kidney 10 k. The rivalry in this particular distance started last year during the race with the same name. It was an unofficial, silent but hard fought battle between these two and it was referree'd by Grant who was in from California. Lief ended up winning the race by 1 second/mile. This year, both these athletes are in top form, less than a month after their performances in the Boston marathon. And although the queen of SLG usually has gotten the better of Stefan in longer races, Stefan is the reigning king of the short distances. The two rivals don't seem to be communicating in these last few days before the race, trying to stay focused on the task instead. I am not sure there will be much fan interest for this event but be warned, all bets are off for this one. Stay tuned for updates on the results.....
