My Little Running Adventures: Boilermaker 2010 is in the books!

What a fantastic weekend for running! Boilermaker 2010 was a great time with great friends! This year boasted a record number of registrations (13,086), finishers (11,600), and multiple broken course records (men & women)! My 4th Boilermaker was certainly not a PR, but was still a rockin time! The run was yesterday morning and it was a nice, comfortable 60 degree morning, no real humidity at the start....which was a nice change from the 95+ with heavy humidity from the previous week! Unfortunately it didn't stay that way!

We headed to Utica on saturday, hit up the expo for our race stuff, and then checked into our hotel. The weekend began as a comedy of errors as we took every wrong turn and scenic route we could find....not purposely of course! After checking in, we picked a place to get pasta and headed out to dinner. After a very eventful dinner (Utica residents are VERY interesting....) we headed back to the hotel to get in some pool time then off to bed!

After turning the wrong way down 2 one-way streets, and really upsetting a cop, we arrived at the pre race shuttle and headed to the start line very early (6:15 a.m.) and had about an hour and 45 min before the start. It was nice and relaxing to be there early and have easy access to the bathrooms and the starting area. It was great to watch the people just pouring in throughout the morning (nearly 12,000).

The wheelchair gun went off at 7:45 and our gun went off at 8am. It only took 4:30 min to cross the start this year....last year it took us 10:00 min to cross. I felt ok starting, was moving well until about 2-3 miles. The humidity just crept right in and I felt myself begin to overheat. It was way too soon for me to start having issues! Fortunately, there are 25....yes, you heard it, 25 water/ice stations along the course and with the help of cold water on the back of my neck and ice in my hands, I was able to bring my temp right back down and keep moving. I ended up walking a bit in the section through the golf course because it's a very long, winding uphill and I just didn't have it in my yesterday. I had a minor issue halfway up the hill around 4 miles because I took my GU shot at a water stop and nearly hurled it right back up! They totally would have taken me off the course! :) Ooops! I also started getting chills around 7-8 miles, but I knew I was close, so I pushed it through to the finish.

I went through the finish line and there was an older gentleman in a suite standing there who shook my hand and said congratulations, great run. I figured he was a race official....later on, I found out it was Senator Chuck Schumer. Ha, I thought he looked familiar, but I was a bit delirious when I crossed!

After making my way through the finish area and over to the post race pa

rty, I grabbed my lunch courtesy of Price Chopper, and went to find my friends. I love my friends, they had beers in hand and ready for me! Nothing like partying with 40,000 of my closest friends after running 9.3 miles! I will say that the sun was high yesterday and after running for 2 hours and then drinking beer, we were starting to feel a bit ill! So, we left the party around 11:30 and headed back to the hotel to jump in the pool. Just what we needed after a long run! Awesome!