I'm very happy with my effort and time, heck(guess I've been in Utah a long time) I'm thrilled with both! But I did not go sub 3. My time was 3:01:48* This is a 7 minute PR and over an hour off of my first marathon time, 4:06 @ TOU 2004 and I trained hard for that 4:06. This was only my first attempt at sub 3 (I can't even remember how many tries it took me to BQ) and I think I'll have a good shot next year!
I had a great time today. Lots of smiling friendly faces at the campfire. Lots of sweaty runners after the finish line. To me both are a good thing.  I looked for more friends at the finish but unfortunately only found a few, yes I did stick around.
I started with a strong effort and worked hard for every mile there after. I think aerobically I was good. But I think my biggest limiting factor today was leg strength. The last few miles I felt like I was running on stumps, tired stumps. And throughout the race I just couldn't keep my legs moving as fast as I wanted to even though my heart rate was kind of low. I started with the sub-3 pace group but just couldn't hang with them. I lost them before Veyo and ended up less than 3 minutes behind them.
*They had new chips this year and mine didn't work. Apparently you can not fold the loop flat against your shoe but need to leave a big floppy bow. Oh well now I know. The marathon took my Garmin time as both my chip and gun time and said they would verify it on the photos. Lucky for me this is one of the very few times I've remembered to stop my watch at the finish. I'm guessing my Garmin time was within a few seconds of what my chip time would have been. But I'm glad I wasn't a few seconds within a sub 3!
1 6:58 154bpm
2 6.56 166
3 6.41 165
4 6.43 162
5 6.48 165
6 6.35 162
7 6.34 162
8 7.48 164
9 7.20 165
10 7.08 166
11 7.29 167 (quick pit stop somewhere in one of these miles)
12 7.05 166
13 6.58 166
14 6.45 167
15 6.24 169
16 6.23 167
17 6.34 169 (these last 3.1 miles = my 5k PR  )
18 6.47 167
19 7.13 169
20 6.51 167
21 6.34 168
22 7.11 168
23 6.59 166
24 6.53 168
25 7.15 169 (legs hammered)
26 7.16 172
.23 7.17 171
6:56 ave pace. 166 bpm ave. | 