Weather - 78 degrees, sunny, slight humidity. Good weather for a July race. I lined up with 13,000 others at 7:40am and waited for the 8:00 start. I ran this race 2 years ago, when I was just starting out with racing. I made the mistake of checking the "over 60 minutes finish time" box on the entry form, and I was put into a chute with some very slow runners. It took over 3 minutes before I crossed the start mat, and because of the wall of people I was forced to run the first mile in over 10 minutes. I was not able to get away from the crush until mile 3.5. I ended up averaging 8:00/mile and finished in 56:00.
This year I confidently checked the "under 49:00 finish time" box, and it only took 30 seconds to cross the start mat. I hit the first mile in 7:00, which was faster than expected because of the 600m Brady Street hill which starts the race. Second mile was crossed in 13:30, and I then settled into a consistent 7:00 pace for the rest of the race. Not much out of the ordinary concerning my own running, other than the external sights and sounds - bands, Elvis sightings, Bill Rogers and Joan Benoit on the course somewhere, and the Kenyans with their super-silky long strides. Oh, I almost forgot, when I was trying to find my way to the proper chute, I must have looked lost, because a race volunteer came up to me and asked if I was an elite runner - that made me smile....
I finished in 48:09, which is what I was expecting. The average pace was 6:52, which is a slight improvement for road races in the 7-9 mile range. Considering the course was hilly, I probably could have averaged a 6:48 on a flat course. What did surprise me was my age group place - I was 26 out of 497 runners, which put me in the top 5%. Even though I train hard, I am still a slow runner. Reading the blogs here give the impression that 1 out of every 2 runners averages 5:30 miles in races of 5k and above. I have to remind myself that someone averaging 5:30/mile is sub-elite, and definitely not common. #253
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