Location: Hopkinton Middle School To Copley Plaza, Boston
Date: Sunday, September 21, 2014; 5:00 am-4:00 pm
I have always felt that there are certain things in life that once achieved, nothing
else matters. After all, what else could mean more? Thus, I had never thought
that I would ever again feel the true joy... I mean real joy of accomplishing something
special. Well not till today.
I love walking, I always
have. One of my favorite things to do is
go to New York City and just walk. It
was the same when I lived in Pittsburgh and I remember with fondness my Sunday
afternoon walks along the river. Plus
Chicago is a fantastic “walking city”
as well. But I have always wondered how
it would feel to do a marathon length walk.
I was keen on the 39-mile ‘Avon’
walk but let’s face it, I was never going to be able to raise $1,800. This one on the other hand required you to
raise only $300 and that sounded doable.
I had thought about doing it last year, but it took 12 months to make it
happen. I raised the money easily in the
end through all of my friends. Now it
was a question of training.
 |
| It was a long way to Boston |
I thought about doing a long walk
in Chicago and so looked at the map to gauge how long 26.2 miles really
was. It was long…really long. In fact it would take me all the way to
Evanston from my apartment…and back. So
the extent of my preparation was going and getting some shoes. The organizers send me my bib number prior to
the walk as well as a sticker saying,
“I
walk for”. I flew into Boston a
couple of days prior to the walk and stayed with a buddy. On the Sunday of the walk, took a cab at 5 am
to Copley Plaza, where couple of school buses were ready to take the participants
to the start line in Hopkinton. I got
into the bus with lot of other people and chatted with a lady sitting next to
me and who was doing the walk for a 2
nd consecutive year.
“Watch
out for the heartbreak hill at the end”, she warned me. We drove into Hopkinton just as the rains
started and with each passing mile it hit me how far we had gone and how far we
had to walk back. I used to live just
outside of Hopkinton and had driven on these roads several times. But today would be different. It was a drizzle as I got off the bus and
went inside the school to pick up my shirt, which I put on after struggling a great deal with the safety pins. I then wrote down the name of my best friend
who has passed recently on the sticker,
“I
walk for” and once I had put that on, it was time to go.
 |
| And I was off |
As I stepped outside, the drizzle
had stopped and the dawn was breaking. Even
though I don’t like it much, I ate a banana because that’s what people usually
do before such things and drank a bottle of water. Then I was off on the course at 6:23 am. We were on
‘Route 135’ and instead of blocking off the entire road as they
usually do for marathons; they had just put some Orange cones and created a
small lane for us on the side of the road.
This meant that there was regular traffic on the road, though it was a
bit early for many to be out. Several
people were walking in groups and some had shirts and signs regarding their cause, or the memory of the person that they were walking on behalf of. As I walked past some of the residential
houses, I saw some inspirational messages posted on the sidewalks on how
‘Jimmy Fund’ was spending the money that
we had raised. In fact every
‘Mile Marker’ had a photo of someone who
had been associated with
‘Jimmy Fund’
either as a patient, or otherwise.
Besides being an indicator for distance, those signs were an encouragement
for all of us to keep moving and the reason why we were out there.
 |
| Everyone was out to support us |
At
‘Mile Marker 2’ I arrived at a
“refueling
station” and was greeted by a group of cheering volunteers. I loaded up on some water,
‘Gatorade’ and some power bars and
resumed my walk. Our route was taking us
past suburban towns and around
‘Mile
Marker 5’ I was feeling the effects of the increasing temperature. The
rain had long stopped and the sun had come out.
I stopped at a
‘Dunkin Donuts’
and went inside to change into shorts and put everything else inside a backpack
that I was carrying. Now that the
weather was nice, many of the residents had come out to cheer us on. I saw a guy with a three-legged
‘Golden Retriever’ and being that it’s
my favorite bred of dogs, I wanted to stop and pet him, but decided to keep
moving. I later saw them both after a
few miles, meaning that they were driving ahead and finding a spot to stop and
cheer the walkers. Same was true of
another gentleman who was ringing
“cowbells”
as people went by. I saw him throughout
the day, all the way to Boston. As
tiring as this was getting, the support of the people on the way as well as the
volunteers at the food stations was helping.
And they were not the only ones providing refreshments. There were many families with kids who were
distributing food and water out of the back of their cars and they were doing
it off their own accord.
 |
| The Welcoming Committee at Natick |
I passed a big water reservoir and then arrived at the Natick
town square, where a lot of festivities were on. After picking up some fluids and snacks
there, I kept moving and eventually joined
‘Washington
Street’. Between
‘Mile Marker’s
15-16’ was a big refueling station with a giant tent and where lunch
sandwiches were being served. This was
the first instance since I had set off that I sat down for a bit and had my
sandwich. While my body was asking me to
stay a bit longer, it was time to get going.
I crossed
‘I-95’ and joined
‘Commonwealth Avenue’ which has plenty
of ups and downs and with 10 miles still to go, I was exhausted…truly exhausted
to the point that I felt that I had hit a wall.
As I passed the beautiful residences on ‘Commonwealth Avenue’, I was dragging my
feet. I sat down for a bit on someone’s
hedge made of stones and looked at what was ahead of me. What was coming up was the dreaded “Heartbreak Hill”. It is an uphill stretch which knocked the
wind out of me and just before we hit ‘Boston
College’, I saw a “Medical Station” and
sat down on a bed like thing. There were
people available to assist if required but all I wanted to do was to take some
weight of my feet for a few minutes. After a few minutes I realized that this was
not going to get any easier by just sitting and the best thing would be to keep
going.
I joined ‘Beacon
Street’ meaning we were on the last stretch. I was now looking forward to seeing each of
the ‘Mile Markers’ but these 5 miles
would be the most brutal of my life. I
was now well and truly in the heart of the city and were walking on sidewalks past
people enjoying their Sunday brunch in restaurants with outdoor seating. They were oblivious to what was going on, but
there were a few fans who were cheering us on through signs such as “Thank You for walking”. Just as I got to ‘Fenway Park’, I saw a woman with a hilarious poster that said, “Me, Lazy, Sitting, Made this poster. You, Brave, Walking, Raising Money”. I disagree.
She had no reason to be out there and by doing so, she had proven that
she was not lazy. She was very much one
of us.
 |
| It had taken 9.5 hours, but was worth every minute in the end |
With 3 miles to go, I was encountering a lot of traffic
lights and stopping the momentum and starting again is not very easy when you
are tired. At one stage we had to cross
a ditch where construction was in progress and getting down a few inches and up again was a monumental hurdle. With one mile to go, I came across cheering squads
lined up on the side of these busy streets.
Perhaps it was because we were so close, but now I had my second wind
and all the events of the day were being replayed in my mind. I was filled with immense pride for doing
this. Nine and half hours since I had started at Hopkinton, I approached the finish banner and realized that this was one of the most significant things that I had ever
done. All my achievements before this,
academic, professional, all of them had been because of other peoples
contributions and help. This was the
first thing that I had done by myself.
Sure I would be sore for days and it would hurt badly tomorrow, but I
had just walked the
‘Boston Marathon’
course. The same one for which I had
volunteered a few months ago. And I had
completed it. No one can ever take that
away from me. Yeah, I had always thought
that after you find the one thing that you want most in your life nothing
else would feel special. But for this one moment it was the most
outstanding feeling ever.
