Wednesday was our last full day in Boston, and we certainly packed a lot in. Tim went off 'sploring on his own, on a mission to get bits and pieces he wanted for machining and electronics projects. Meanwhile, Dana and Richard and I visited three museums.

We began at the Mapparium, which doesn't allow any photography, and perhaps this is for the best. The experience is difficult to justify with words: you're inside of a 3 storey tall globe, made entirely of stained glass. It represents the world as it was politically in 1935, when the globe was constructed. Things have changed since then geopolitically, but not geographically, and it was amazing to look all around, up and down, and be surrounded by the vastness of our planet. 

We then walked over to the Museum of Fine Art and had a nice, quiet, elegant lunch, then on to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which is best known for a) the incredible 5 storey courtyard at its centre, full of luxuriant gardens and sculptures and b) the yet unsolved heist. The museum has left the empty frames on the wall from which the paintings were stolen. Quite the feat, given that they were on the second or third floor. Two snapshots I will hold in my mind: a couple of children absorbed in something, perhaps drawing, busily scribbling away, on their bellies in the courtyard garden (picture included below), and a young woman, bald and wearing a surgical mask, clearly very ill, sitting contemplatively at the edge of the courtyard, finding some sort of serenity, or at least I hoped so.

After the Gardner, we walked over to Fenway Park to get some Red Sox souvenirs, and to replace the cap I'd lost during the marathon. Then Richard and Dana caught the T back to the apartment as I wandered back on foot, detouring through Copley and the Prudential for one last kick at the shopping can. 

And of course I took more pictures of blossoms and the Common, and the city.

We went out for dinner with Betsey and Trish, Dana and Richard, to a lovely Italian restaurant over toward the South Station. Unfortunately it was raining when we left, and raining even harder when we walked back to Dana and Richard's apartment, so it was a bit chilly for me in a dress and bare legs. I don't get out often, and when I do I dress up, so the suffering was in the name of fashion.

The next morning, we went back out to Sherburn to retrieve Tim's car, and then we began our journey back home. More on that later.

Monday was race day, and after an early start to get the bus to Hopkinton (7:00), an hour on the bus, then waiting around at the Athletes' Village for the 10:50 am start, I finished in 3:41:05, a bit of a disappointment, but considering the conditions, I will take it. It was already 74 degrees at start time, and the sun was relentless. There was no shade to be had. Boston has water stations at every mile, so I made sure to drink a cupful at each and every station, and by mile 10 I was grabbing three, so that I could pour the other two on me. This was perhaps my biggest error in judgement, because I perceived by my soaking clothes that I was sweating profusely, when in fact I'd become dehydrated enough to not really be sweating at all, and that's not good. 

I was on pace for a 3:20 finish at the half marathon point (21.1 km) and didn't feel too bad, but between there and the 30 km mark, the wheels began to fall off, not in a terrible way, but I began to slow down, and of course that's where all of the hills are as well. I decided to try to be prudent, because I wanted to finish the race and not end up in the medical tent, so I took it easy from 30km onwards and walked a bit at each water station. Obviously, from the number of other people walking, and the fact that I was hopscotching with runners I'd been running with for a while, everybody was feeling the heat.

At the finish line, the medics were very visible in their red jackets, and they were carefully and efficiently picking people out who looked to be in trouble, and diverting them to the medical tent. Later in the day, at about 19:30, I was taking the dogs for a little walk to the Common, and I saw a red jacket coming towards me. I said to her: you must have had a long day, and she agreed. She'd been at the finish line from noon through 7:30, helping rehydrate the fallen. 

I started with the rank of 16601 - my bib number (Boston allots bibs/starting order based on your qualifying time) and finished ranked 10 094 out of nearly 27 000 finishers, so I beat my bib number (and passed the equivalent number of runners) by nearly 7 000. I finished 2 880th out of about 12 thousand females. Those stats are the ones I will give priority to, rather than the finishing time. Boston is a notoriously tough course, and it will chew you up and spit you out mercilessly, even in optimal weather. 

After a long, delicious soak in scented epsom salts, thoughtfully purveyed by Dana and Richard, I was feeling human enough to go out for a bit of a celebratory dinner. They asked what I fancied, and I had one answer : cheese! It's a post-marathon indulgence. Dana and Richard pulled some out of the fridge then and there, and it was the best cheese I think I have ever tasted, a beautiful sharp cheddar. 

We did go out for dinner to a little restaurant at the base of the Ritz-Carlton, and it was amusing watching the party of runners a couple of tables over get up painfully and hobble away when their meal was done. Not that I was hobbling any less. But my legs did feel better than expected, and the next morning I even managed a slow 4 mile run on the treadmill at Richard's gym. 

Then Tim and I leashed up the dogs and headed over to the Common to meet up with Amy, a friend from Ohio, who had also run the marathon and who wanted to see us and the dogs before she left for home. She'd brought a burger and fries toy for the dogs; it's ingeniously velcroed together so that they can ''tear'' it apart, then it all goes back together again without being wrecked. Arwen carried the bun all over the Common; they do love this toy! And it was so great to see Amy.

Back to the apartment; we then all piled into their jeep and headed out of the city, aiming for the beach. The weather had changed drastically, and it was overcast and in the 40s, though not raining. We stopped first at Woodman's of Essex, famed for its clam strips, and everyone else indulged in the house specialty. Then on to the beach, but we were denied entry since the summer no-dog policy had come into effect on April 1. Instead, we found a beautiful state park and went for a walk there. Then we came back to Boston and I went for a walk across the Common and back to Copley square, where the marathon finishes, to grab some souvenirs. Out for dinner again after that, to a tiny, stellar Italian restaurant where the chef visits tables and explains food and wine. Another full day and late night, and one more day left to spend in Boston, but that's for tomorrow's journal.

It's hard to believe that this time last week, I was just getting ready to go to bed on the eve of the marathon. So much has happened in the space of those seven days, with many miles travelled, friends met, and fun times had. So the next few days will be all about sharing the photos from Boston. I took hundreds, whittled them down to the best of, and now I'll post the best of the best of. So here we go. This set was taken at York Harbor Beach in Maine, on a very warm and sunny Easter Sunday.