I Beg Your Pardum – Boston 2011 Pt3

The final word on Boston 2011 is wow. Yes, year 2 for me was a fantastic experience and I can’t wait to do it again. Next year, we are talking about going to London to run the marathon which is on the same weekend so my return to Boston may have to wait until 2013.

No problem, that will actually give me time to qualify in a new age group, where I will still need to run 3h 25m (or faster to ensure entry) but if my training goes as planned I will be well under that mark when the time comes.

There’s not much else to say about Boston that I didn’t cover in the first two posts but as I was writing them, I didn’t have time to write everything I wanted to say at one sitting which is why I broke the race reports down into 3 parts. That leaves us with a few items of interest

The jacket last year was bright blue, gaudy, and just plain said ‘look at me’ when worn so aside from the drive home from Boston to Toronto and one of my daughter’s track meets a week after we got back, I never wore it the whole year. This year, I didn’t really intend to purchase another jacket but when I saw it, I thought now that is something I’d wear so I ponied up the $85 and got one. Haven’t hardly taken it off since!

The old jacket, well, I think I will have it framed the same way you might frame a sports jersey, sort of as a commemoration of my first trip to the big marathon.

There was a decent amount of good items for purchase at the race expo. I decided to add a short sleeve race shirt to go with the long sleeve shirt provided with the race entry. I also remembered to get the toque this year. I was bummed that I forgot to get one last year. I also got a running cap, not that I needed another but it looks nice!

The piece de resistance (smoke and mirrors) was the new Nike+ SportWatch GPS. It looks sleek, is light, feels comfortable and seemed like a good buy at $199.00. Well, I shipped that back today. As good as it looked and great it feels on, it just paled in comparison to Garmin’s features. Too bad as I got a lot of compliments on it in the few days I wore it. I still don’t know if I am getting a refund, or if it shows up on my doorstep, unacceptable for return. it should be ok as the box was still in good shape and the watch itself un-scuffed.

Anyway, that’s that. The race weekend offers much more in memories than paraphenalia could ever offer and I am so glad to have returned. I still say I would go back to watch people run it as I like it there so much. yes, I would have race envy but I would still go.

But the fact is, I will be back.