boston trip

As you may have previously read in this post, we took a trip to Boston last week for the Boston Marathon and a mini-vacay.  We went with our friends, Tim & Melody, and Tim was running in the marathon.  The rest of us were comfortably watching from the sidelines! :)

As everyone knows, there were tragic events that took place a week ago at the finish line of the marathon.  Luckily, we had all left the downtown area an hour before the bombs went off and we were not staying at a hotel downtown.  I'm not really go into any story about the events because I was not directly involved and found out like many of you all, witnessing the tragedy on television in our hotel room. Of course my heart aches for those directly affected and the city of Boston... it truly is an amazing town.

But, onto the fun memories...

We arrived in Boston late Friday night {April 12th}. The first couple days of the trip included some touristy things. We got to do some fun sight seeing in the downtown area.  We went to the famous spots like Old North Church & Paul Revere's house.  It's so neat that Boston has so many historical sights right in their downtown area.  It was Paul Revere's house, then right next door was a Starbucks! :) You don't have to drive outside of the city to see all the history the town holds.

We took a trolley tour to see the city and we were able to jump on and off at any of the stops we wanted to actually spend time at.  I highly recommend the trolley tour for a way to see the city in a shorter amount of time without tons of walking.

Taken with my phone during the Old Time Trolley Tour

Getting ready for the race... Tim needed to go pick up his number and packet for the race, as well as get some of his official Boston Marathon gear! Since we stayed at a hotel near the starting line, on our way into the city so he could get all of his necessary items, we drove the marathon course. That was also a great experience because we were able to see several outlying towns of Boston.  Some of which were so incredibly beautiful! I love east coast architectural style, so I was gawking at many of the gorgeous homes, churches, & adorable store fronts of these towns.

Then... race day!!!

And yes, there are Dunkin' Donuts literally EVERYWHERE!  It didn't bother me by any means, I probably ate there 3 or 4 times on the trip!

The marathon was such a cool experience to me.  I used to be a runner {not to be confused with a marathon-er} so a little bit of me feels the racer's pain and excitement {although, likely not to the same extent as they experience}. For whatever reason, seeing people do well or working so hard can get me emotional, more in running than in any other sport.  If you get me near a high school state track meet I'll be a weeping mess! Melody & I both agreed, next time we should bring our tissues!

What was so awesome for Caleb, Melody, & myself is that we got to see Tim three times throughout the race.  That may not sound like a big deal, but for a marathon that basically runs in a straight line, plus one that is such a huge event where there are literally a million spectators, we were pretty proud of ourselves for our rock-star strategy.  We saw Tim at mile 6, 16, & 25!

Tim finished with a time of 2:58:43 - about a 6:49 mile pace.  My body aches just thinking about it!
We all agree we had a great time on the trip! Can't wait to watch the Boston Marathon again someday!

*All pictures taken by me unless otherwise noted