Weather could not have been better. It was about mid 30's at start time. Cold to just stand around in, but great for running. No wind. Bright sunshine. It just warmed up from there to probably low to mid 50's by the time I finished.

Started out with the 4:30 pace team but quickly lost them in the massive sea of people. First 3 or 4 miles were pretty congested but it kept me at nice slow pace to start off with. The Half runners broke off just before mile 7 and the course really opened up then. I did not keep track of my pace per mile. Due to a serious lack of training over the past month I was just running on feel and not worrying about time. The first 7 miles flew by and I was holding a sub 10 minute pace for sure. Had a gu pack, enduralytes, and advil about mile 5. The next 6 flew by also and next thing I know I am half way home. 2:05:05 for the first half. At this point, the 4 hour devil started talking to me. He was saying "go for it." "What's the worst that could happen." But I thought better of it. I still had a long way to go and I had not trained properly for a 4 hour marathon. Had another gu pack, some more enduralytes and advil and just kept cruising. 14, 15, 16, 17 all flew by. Still cruising through mile 18 though I felt as though my pace had slowed a little bit. I ran with the 4:15 pace group through most of this stretch but eventually nudged ahead of them. Mile 19 was were the miles started to seem longer, but still no real issues until mile 21. The spasms in my legs started and this point I started walking the aid stations to allow them to calm down a little bit. The last 4 miles were pretty long but again, nothing too bad. At mile 22 my wife called my cell phone and said she had a surprise for me. She, my daughters, my brother, his wife, and their 3 boys were all waiting for me at the finish line. I had not expected anyone to be there. We have a 5 week old baby and we had decided it would be too much for Renee to try and come down to the race with the baby and try to keep up with our 2 1/2 year old at the same time. But she did it anyway! So that gave me a little extra motivation to get to the finish line. I rounded the last corner and was coming down the straight away to the finish line and I saw them. My oldest dauther came out and ran to the finish line with me and put my finishers medal around my neck. Very cool.

I was pretty happy with my performance given the circumstances. It was a fun race(I guess, as fun as running 26.2 miles can be). Lot's of people along the route, bands, parties, great spectators etc.

TRAIN! My longest run was 16 miles way back on November 6th. Since then I had runs of 3.2, 5, 5, 13.2, 4, 3 , 1.7, 8, and 3 miles. So I went in somewhat unprepared. But the 2 half ironmans I did this summer really helped get me through it.

Walked around with family.


Lack of training.