Well, I got to finally run Boston.
I will start with the positive.
1. Very well organized from the expo to the shuttle busses to the Althletes village to the corrals and post finish. Top notch.
2. Incredible crowd support even in the very bad weather conditions. My favorite section was in Wellesley College, it gave me a good boost when it was needed.
3. Great city support pre and post race. This included getting applauded by a group of patrons at a restaurant that I went into for lunch shortly after I finished. The group even bought me a drink.
4. Miles 1-13. Stuck to my pre race plan for the most part, maybe a few seconds per mile faster.
5. I was proud of running the entire race and not stopping to walk once, even once I had totally hit the wall and was injured on top of it (see more below).
And now the negative:
1. The weater - low-mid forties, rain from about mile 6 to the finish that got progressively stronger, a head wind the whole way which included gusts of 20+ mph (or least it felt that way).
2. Miles 15-18 - I knew at this point that my pace during the first half was too fast so I slowed things down in prep for the Newton Hills.
3. Miles 19-26 - on top of already hitting the wall due to going out too fast for the first half and lack of training in Mar-Apr due to injury/illness, my left foot/ankle injury came back during the second of the Newton Hills. I basically had to hobble/limp the final 8 miles in the cold rain at about a 10 minute per mile pace. These were the hardest 8 miles of my life.
My splits were:
First Half - 1:37:09
Second Half - 2:00:08
I am making a promise that I will get back to do this again and to get it right the next time. I don't think 2016 is in the cards since I would like to get healthy and get back to a decent consistent mileage base before attempting another marathon. 2017 seems like a good target, plus I will get an extra 5 minutes added to my qualifying requirement.
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