Boston Marathon: Warm and windy

From various reports from friends and others I know who were running the Boston Marathon today, the conditions were less than optimal. The warm temperatures and bright sunshine may be a welcome feeling after the colder than normal start to spring, but it doesn’t do marathoners any favors. Add to that a strong headwind on the point-to-point Hopkinton to Boston course, and that made for a challenging day for most runners. The elite runners’ finishing times reflected this.

Among Marist alums, here are some results I could cobble together (more are welcome). Chris “Chomps” McCloskey, 2:54:40; Mike Schab, 3:10:13; Sean Hopkins, 3:50:09; Rick Hankey, 4:15:51. We continue to be amazed, impressed and proud of Chomps, the former middle distance star (he held several mid distance school records) who was never a fan of the endurance events. Now, he is an Ironman triathlete and a pretty darn good marathoner. And we are always thrilled to see Schab and Hopkins knock off yet another marathon to their ever-growing list (especially Schabby, who runs a lot of them). Rick was a teammate of mine back in the 1980s. He left the sport for a long time, but it's gratifying to see him back at it; this was his second finish at Boston, both times raising money for charity in the process. Thanks to Mike G for this photo of Schab, Mike G and his appropriately named son Miles (sleeping), Hopkins (with G’s daughter Lucy’s sunglasses) and Hopkins’ girlfriend Kate. Lucy was busy running around on the playground. The mid-race photo of Chomps was poached from his Facebook page.

A few other shout-outs to those in the Marist Running orbit:

--Mary Christian (mom of sophomore distance runner Mariah Christian) ran an amazing 3:20:38 and finished an elite level 16^th place in her age group. Her first 13.1 miles were in 1:37:44, which means her pace over the final 13.1 barely faded despite the Hills of Newton and the relentless conditions. She is our hero, and a great role model for Mariah and for all of our runners who can see through her amazing race efforts that running is indeed a lifetime sport. Nicely done!

--Speaking of great pacing: Siobhan Dwyer, a Spackenkill High School alum who ran for Marist Running Legend Mr. Bucket (“David Swift”), ran a rare and extremely impressive negative split race at Boston. Her finishing time was 3:33:53, with 13.1-mile splits of 1:49:32/1:44:21 (if I did the math correctly). We remember practicing at Spackenkill (back when we used to do that) while Siobhan was a Spackenkill Spartan running for Swift, and then we saw her career continue to soar while running and racing at Iona College (yeah, THEM). This was a truly amazing race under any conditions, no less the challenging ones of today. OK!

--Finally, in the “friendly rivals” category, a quick shout-out to our western New York pal and coaching colleague Nate Huckle, who has done such a good job in reviving the track/cross country program at MAAC rival Canisius College. Nate finished in 3:06:03, easily requalifying for Boston (that was his goal) on the tough day. For Nate to continue to train at a high enough level to run this time – and for him to actually run this time during the busiest stretch of the coaching calendar on so many levels – is an amazing feat. He was darting all over the Northeast over the weekend, traveling from Buffalo to Lewisburg, Pa., coaching his team on the first day of competition at Bucknell, and then getting to Boston in time to race and race well.