AMHERST, N.S. – Sheldon Morris returned from his fifth Boston Marathon this week, happy with his race, although it might have taken a couple of days to dry out from the wet conditions that plagued this year’s event.
The Springhill runner completed the race with a time of 3:17:10. For the entire time he was pelted with rain, wind and chilling cold.
“I have nothing to complain about, even the weather,” he said. “For sure, it wasn’t what anybody would wish for, but what do you do?
That’s what you’re given that day, so you do what the other 20-30,000 people are doing,” he continued. “You lace up, and you go until you can’t anymore. I was fortunate enough that I made it through.”
Many did not finish the race, pulling out due to hypothermia, including several of the elite hopefuls.
Morris saw runners pulling out, and saw the medical tents full as he battled his way to the 42.2K finish. During the race, he ran by all the spots where he had to pull over one year ago, and remembered the epic battle he had to wage to finish the that year’s race.
Also on his mind were the kidney stones he had been diagnosed with only days before leaving for this year’s race.
“The doctor told me it could pass anytime in the next few days,” said Morris. “I took some extra medicine with me, and had it on course. I was lucky, it didn’t pass and still hasn’t.”
Having kept his eye on the weather forecast, he prepared for the race as best as he could, trying different clothing options to see what worked best for him. He ended up wearing triathlon singlet and shorts, as well as tights, fleece, jacket and rain poncho. He shed the fleece and poncho just before starting the race.
As for the race itself, he started conservatively for the first 5K, them moved into his goal pace, but started to feel his legs stiffening. At mile 14 he began stopping for bathroom breaks and making extra fueling efforts.
“My hands were so cold I couldn’t get the gels out of my pocket, and if I did get them out, I couldn’t tear them open,” he said. “I didn’t take the amount of gels I planned, but I had lots of water and Gatorade on course.”
At the 20-mile mark he started pushing back to try and make up some time. He hit the three-hour mark with about two miles to go.
“With two miles to go, my time was somewhere around three hours flat,” he said. “At that point, I thought if I could shuffle in at a 5-5:20 pace, I might get a BQ (Boston Qualifying time) again. I was able to keep moving, and ended up happy with that time.”
