Boston Marathon - RunMarathon

Overall I’m satisfied with the performance even though I did not reach my goal. The 3:13 time is a PR by 6 minutes plus within a 6 month window.
Below is my attempt at realizing the data above to see why I did not reach the calculated race time:
I actually ran 26.48 miles vice 26.2 miles because of running in and out of the mass of people…I had to pass almost 5000 folks enroute.
If I take the above into account my time for 26.2 would have been 3:10:49.
I also came in 1.5lbs overweight which is another 1:30 off the 3:10:49 to 3:09:19 relative speed.
That now leaves a delta of about 6:16 (3:03:05 vs. 3:09:19 adjusted) between actual and calculated results.
Right from the start of the race..I realized that I had trouble maintaining 142 BPM for 6:59 pace and had to run at almost my ceiling 146 Average BPM for first 13 miles and that only got me to a 7:05 pace for my first ½ split.
I maintained this pace and heart rate pretty much till 18 miles at which point I realized that I needed to work harder to maintain pace and went to 151BPM….I kept it at 151 BPM as I started to have cramps at about mile 22 after Newton hills and took whatever pace I could sustain fearing blow-up. Eventually, I was able to get past cramping and finish with no stop and actually finished the last mile at 7:20 Pace.
I don’t know why my heartrate averaged about 5-6 beats higher than track testing… other than running around people (almost passed 5000) and not being able to get into a consistent stride. I also believe that my weekly average volume in training was on the low side (less than 30 miles per week) eventhough I did peak weeks of 45, 50, ,48, 55 respectively…Another factor could be that my longest run was only 18 miles.


Not much really

Easy static stretch


Cramping


Boston Marathon...what can you say...best race experience I've had thus far...the people and the atmosphere make the race