2:39:00 today! 1st Idahoan, 298 Overall, 8th in 45-49 AG! Executed my plan perfectly and felt great! More to report later! (Tangent 4) An awesome race today, I stayed patient and executed my plan exactly how I wanted to letting others go when I knew I needed to stay easy so I could run strong later. Went to my mantra "God give me strength" often and He did!
One of my best races ever! Thanks to all the IF runners for being such great friends, especially to Marlin and Nate for riding the buses and hanging out together at the athlete village. The bus ride to the high school took forever and was causing issues with the well hydrated runners. We got the village and found a good spot in the sun to relax and hit the PoP several times. I fueled up on PowerBar EnergyBlends and the new Performance Energy wafers and was ready to go. The announcement came for Wave 1 corrals 1-3 to leave and I ran to the starting line for the warmup. It went from cool the warm in a matter of minutes and was shedding my outer layer quickly.
I saw Walter at the start and the runners from the Phoenix Banditos team and was going to try to run with them but we had different plans and drifted apart. I wanted to go out conservative and use the hills wisely to conserve energy. Well the first mile was a bit fast but ok (6:00) along with the next 2 miles. Walter was ready to go and took off so I let him go and settled in near the Banditos team. Nice guys but in a zone and competitive mode so I just ran near them not in the pack as Bret had invited me to do. Nice and easy for the next few miles hitting right around 6:00 pace pretty easy. I took my first PowerBar gel at mile 7 and it gave me a boost. Had a bit of hip twinge at mile 9/10 but told myself I was not going to let that happen and prayed to make it go away, and it did! Fun running through all the towns and HUGE crowds. Wellesley did not disappoint and was as loud as ever and fun to high 5 all the girls! I hit the half mark at 1:18:19 right on the mark I wanted. I took another PowerBar gel right around 12/14 miles to keep the fuel tank up. I was taking water/Gatorade every stop and dumping water every stop to keep cool on a warmish day today.
Around mile 15 I caught up to Walter and prayed that he would latch on and we could run together. I tried to stay consistent and not give too much back through the Newton hills and ran right on my projected splits for the second half. Around mile 17 I saw the first Bandito runner coming back to me and passed him. I tried to stay nice and patient as the hills started and prayed a lot! I crested Heartbreak at exactly the pace I wanted and started to open it up on the downhill and saw another Bandito coming back so I poured it on and was feeling great. I felt stronger through here than at the half! It was great being in Boston and the crowd was amazing and full of energy!
I was hoping for a closer to even split (1:18/1:19 or 1:20) but I will take the 1:20:40 second half gladly. I ended up passing lots of people in the second half and saw lots of runners cramping up badly and I felt so bad for them. I ran by Derek at mile 24 and wished him well and hoped he would run with me to keep me going.
The turn onto Boylston was amazing...what energy! I pushed hard in the last 0.25M and passed two more runners and just missed the sub 2:39 but I am ecstatic with the result. My fastest Boston yet, 10 minutes faster than my first 8 years ago! I have been the first Idahoan every time I have run here and give God the glory for this run and the healing opportunity it provided all of us!
This Boston marathon was another amazing experience (they all have been tremendous) and it was great to share it again with so many friends. Nice to see Lynette, Marlin, Andrea and Alana at the finishers area but it was cold downtown so Marlin, Mauri, Kami and I left to go get our bags and head the hotel to recuperate. After the race in the family meeting area a young guy came up to me and said: "Hey, you are the PowerBar guy! I used the tips all of you told me about this race and I ran a 6 minute PR! Thanks!". That was cool, glad what we talked about helped someone do great!
We were too tired to make it back downtown and ended up sitting in the hot tub and having dinner at the hotel with some other marathoners (Richard Hirst, you are a great guy!). Lots of fun but and emotional day but now very tired. Wow, Boston is the best race in the world!
Splits: 6:00, 5:44, 5:55, 5:53, 6:02, 5:47, 5:52, 5:56, 5:56, 6:02, 6:06, 5:57, 6:02, 5:59, 6:03, 5:47, 6:13, 6:03, 6:10, 6:27 (heartbreak), 5:51, 6:02, 6:02, 6:16, 6:22, 6:01 pace for 0.2M.
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