Since my first marathon (NYC 2006) my goal has been to run a sub 3:00. Based on my shorter race times this should have been relatively easy to accomplish however the marathon is a long way especially if you have not put in the miles. If I ever get the chance I would like to post my training for Boston, but in a nutshell it was between 45 to 65 mpw (which I still believe is minimal if you plan on racing the marathon distance), with tempo runs (usually 4 miles) at 15K/half marathon pace, marathon pace workouts up to 10 miles, two 24 mile long runs, other long runs with the last 4 to 8 miles at marathon pace, etc. However, no speed workouts or intervals (these seem to work great for me for the shorter races, however, not for the marathon).
I ran Boston like almost all my other races, i.e. try to run the tangents (basically impossible because of all the other runners), concentrate on the task at hand and stare at the person's head/back directly in front of me. All, which makes up for a pretty boring race report about what is really an exciting/great race. I did allow myself one distraction and that was conversing with a teammate (Norby) that I ran into on the course around 5 miles. We ran together for the next 4 or 5 miles until Norby took off, which was a smart move for him since he ran a faster time.
I would have to say Boston was definitely the most crowded race I have even run, however, since the corrals are seeded everyone is generally trying to move at the same speed so it all works out. Below are my splits; the first mile was a little slow because of the crowds, picked up the pace during the second mile too much. Actually, I thought I messed up another marathon by mile 2, by running too fast at the beginning, tried to ease back the pace but that did not really work until around the 6-mile point. By 25K (15.5 miles) I built up a cushion of 1:44, which is right before the Newton hills start at 16 miles. By 25.2 miles (one mile to go) I had lost all but 13 seconds of my cushion and was faced by the fact that I had to run better than a 7:05 last mile to make it under 3:00. Fortunately I had one more 6:52 mile in me, however, this took a Herculean effort since my legs were pretty much wasted the last few miles, although not as bad as my previous marathons. During the last mile I keep looking for the 800 meters to go sign, however I never saw one. Once I was on the final straightway I tried to kick it in with whatever I had left which was pretty much nothing, stopped my watch at the finish and looked down and saw 2:59:49 (official time was 2:59:47) and smiled!
Splits
1 mile 6:57
2 mile 13:20 (6:23)
3 mile 19:48 (6:28)
5k: 0:20:29, cushion 0:50
10k: 0:41:26 (20:57) cushion 1:13
15k 1:02:39 (21:13) cushion 1:20
20k 1:23:47 (21:08) cushion 1:32
Half 1:28:19 cushion 1:41
25k 1:44:54 (21:07) cushion 1:44
30k 2:06:27 (21:33) cushion 1:31
35k 2:28:11 (21:44) cushion 1:07
40k 2:50:16 (22:05) cushion 0:22
1 mile to go 2:52:55
Last mile 6:52
Official Time 2:59:47
Finish Pace 0:06:52
Overall 1211
Gender 1159
Division 269
