Mike Adamshick took a conservative approach to his first Boston Marathon appearance.
“Boston is a bit challenging,” said Adamshick, a 37-year-old from Dallas who made his first visit to the Massachusetts city for Monday’s race. “The middle section of it has a lot of famous hills.
“You don’t want to go crazy. You wind up being a bit timid to make sure you have something left for the end. Never seeing the course before, you really don’t know until the end.”
Adamshick finished just fine. He completed the 26.2-mile run in 3:07:54 to place 2,520th overall out of 27,491 runners who started the 120th annual race.
A sixth-grade teacher at Lehman-Jackson Elementary School, Adamshick qualified for Boston by running under 3:10 – the cutoff for his age group – when he completed the 2014 Steamtown Marathon in 3:07:35. He has since run a career-best 3:04.34 at the 2015 Steamtown.
After three marathons in northeastern Pennsylvania, completing the Steamtown course from Forest City to Scranton, and one Baltimore Marathon appearance, Adamshick’s fifth marathon came in one of the world’s most famous running events.
“The whole experience was just overwhelming, coming from doing small races around here,” said Adamshick, who also competes in triathlons. “Steamtown is 3,000 people and this is like 30,000. It’s about 10 times bigger.
“You’re just running in a sea of people the whole time.”
Adamshick made his way through that sea faster than any of the other Back Mountain participants at this year’s race.
Marina Orrson, a 25-year-old from Shavertown, was the top Back Mountain female finisher.
Orrson, an assistant track and cross country coach at Lake-Lehman who wins several local events each year, finished in 3:10:28. She was the 269th woman to cross the finish line and placed 2,945th overall.
Among the other local finishers were: John Martino, 31, Dallas, 3:27:26, 6921st; Jessica Chesman, 43, Dallas, 3:39:13, 10,550th; Myron Sidloski, 65, Dallas, 3:57:12, 16,040th; and Joyce Foster, 61, Dallas, 4:25:36, 21,294th.
Adamshick traveled to Boston with his parents, wife and daughter. He said he may not have done the ideal pre-race preparation, with tourist interests leading to miles of walking around the city the two days before the race.
A return trip is possible.
Adamshick, who competed in other sports when he was younger, got involved in running and triathlons through encouragement from his wife, Kelly. Both Mike and Kelly have already met the qualifying standards in the timeframe necessary to run in the 2017 Boston Marathon.
