This was my first marathon. I trained to be able to finish in something closer to 3:10, which would have qualified me for Boston. There were two big obstacles today that got in the way of that. It was a little bit hillier than I planned for, and there were 16 to 18 mile per hour head winds from mile 15 all the way to mile 21 that were pretty devastating to most of the runners including yours truly. You can look at my splits and see that once I hit mile 16 each successive mile was about 14 seconds slower than the last. By the time I rounded the corner at mile 21 and had the wind at my back I was able to improve within a range of 27 to 15 seconds per mile, but I felt totally drained. I know that mile 21 is usually where the "wall" in the marathon comes in to play, so I think it ended up hitting me harder than had I not had to deal with the winds for the 6 miles leading up to that point. There was actually a third obstacle today that I have not yet mentioned, and that was the temperature. It ended up be a little warmer than I would have liked. All week long the forecast said we would have 52 degrees, but in reality it started out at about 64 degrees and rose to 67 by the time I finished. I felt my self breaking a real good sweat by mile 3. I probably used the water stops for both hydration and to cool my head from miles 15 to the finish. I am happy with my performance overall. If I had it to do over again I definitely would have gone out slower in the beginning, given the situation I found my self in with wind later in the course. Especially since the 3:30:00 pace group caught up to me somewhere at mile 21 and I was only able to hang in with them for about 1 mile. I think had I gone out in 8:00 minute miles with them instead of 7:30's to 7:12's, I would have been able to hold the 8:00 minute pace much easier in the end. With my finish time I average an 8:13 pace. My running buddy who has done several marathons, warned me about the wind. He said not try for the BQ, because I would end up going out fast and then die out in the end. His planned pace, whether he was trying for his BQ or not was a little slower than my planned pace. He said that if I went out too fast for the windy conditions, he would see me at mile 22. At the 21 mile turnaround point, he saw me from the other side of the street, and yelled at me "I'm coming for you." I thought, Oh my gosh, he predicted this would happen. But I knew he went out a little faster than he planned for in the wind so I made it my goal to not let him catch me. This was about the point that the 3:30:00 pace group caught up to me. I ended up hanging in with them for about a mile and indeed I was able to "get away" from my running buddy. He told me after we finished that when he saw me hanging with them he knew he could not catch me. So as I said, overall I am quite pleased with my performance given the warm, windy, hilly conditions. I beat my buddy's PR, and I placed 12 in division and 94 overall. Some interesting points to illustrate the difficult conditions. The winner finished at 2:32:29. The second place finisher came in over 21 minutes later at 2:54:07. Within my age division (25 to 29), only 2 qualified for Boston. Their times were 3:02:53 and 3:09:08. Within the 30 to 34 age division, still my age division for qualifying purposes, 3 qualified at 2:32:29 (first place overall), 2:57:34 (second place overall), and 2:59:43 (5th place overall). Of the 1,509 finishers, only 14 runners finished in under 3:10:00.
Chip time: 3:35:05 Gun Time: 3:35:18 Overall Place: 91 DIV/PL: 12/108 Splits: 7:27 7:20 7:21 7:28 7:23 7:10 7:14 7:12 7:21 7:33 7:16 7:22 7:28 8:01 7:59 8:20 8:35 8:49 8:56 9:11 9:27 9:00 8:41 9:07 9:11 9:27
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