This run went better than I expected. My goal was to beat last year's time of 1:35:30. I was thinking that I should be able to get under 1:35, but I also figured it would hurt more than it did. Although, I have been running, I just haven't run nearly as much as last year leading up to this race. I did make a few mistakes in last year's run (not enough fluids), and I was not going to make that mistake this year.

The first couple of miles were uneventful and humbling at the same time. This field is stacked with "true" runners (no swim/bike) and Boston qualifiers. So, when the gun goes off the first mile has about 200-400 people running sub 7m/m. I held back and went by RPE trying to make the 1st mile as easy as possible. I knew the next two miles are fast downhill and would be sub 7m/m. I tried to keep my HR in the upper Z3 area and that worked good for the first 4/5 miles. After that it was Z4 and beyond ;)

My first couple of miles I spotted davidclough out in front of me. I did my best to keep him in my sights, but I wasn't goint to speed up to try and run with him at that point. I had informed Holly that david was running really well this year and she told me that I had better not let him beat me or she wasn't coming to any more of my run races. Hey, she's tough ;) Anyway, he looked strong, but I also train with him enough to know he tends to go out very fast. Around mile 4 or so, I finally caught him and gave him a little slap in the behind to let him know I was in the house ;) My next rabbit was Dr. D (my chiro/ART guy). He is an Ultra guy, who has done many sub 3 hour marathons, but you never know what kind of race he has on a given day. Turns out he ran the course before the race that day, so this was his attempt at completing a marathon. Either way, he is a smart runner, so I just kept him within 10-20s of me and the pace felt good.

Having looked at my splits from last year and trained on this course many times, I am convinced you can only hold back so much at the beginning. No matter what you do, the last 4 miles are going to hurt. The climbs are large and not much recovery distance between each climb. Very difficult course to negative split and I really think you would kill yourself on those last hills, if you went by pace on them. With that said, it looks like my 1st half was only 5-10s faster than the hilly second half.

I finally was about ready to pass Dr. D at about mile 8 (mile 8/9 are slightly downhill - great time to recover AND pick up pace). As I closed though, he started to really pick it up. So, I let him go and just tried to take in some more water/infinit and hoped I could close the gap on the hills.

The first hill before mile 10, didn't hurt as bad as I remember and I kind of slowed to make sure the HR didn't get out of control. I was going to save my "major HR blow up match" for the next hill, knowing there is more time to recover after that SOB. It worked out well, and I made up some ground on DR. D. At around mile 12 going into the next sub-division, I still felt like I had some gas, but didn't want to push too early. Once, I had 12 miles in the bank, I just let it fly. I was only making about about 10 feet per mile on the Doctor, but I figured with a push I could get him at the end. I gave it all I had the last 400m, passing a few dudes and a couple of ladies. I only had the Doctor left, but by that time I was at MAX effort and he could hear my breathing and sped up with about 20m to go. I yelled out at him and he laughed as we crossed the finish line .05s apart. Very fun ending. The little sub race in my mind pushed me to a PR by 1:30 on that course and just under the 1:34 mark.

Good times. Here are the splits

1m: 7:13, 144 ahr
2m: 6:52, 155 ahr (downhill)
3m: 6:57, 155 ahr (downhill)
4m: 7:19, 156 ahr (uphill)
5m: 7:07, 157 ahr
6m: 7:17, 158 ahr
7m: 7:26, 159 ahr (uphill)
8m: 7:09, 159 ahr
9m: 6:59, 156 ahr (downhill)
10m: 7:21, 160 ahr (major uphill)
11m: 7:19, 161 ahr (major uphill)
12m: 7:10, 164 ahr (uphill)
13m: 6:58, 165 ahr
0.14m: 5:55, 167 ahr


Pacing was good, nutrition/hydrations was very good. The only thing I would do differently is not go on a trip with the guys to NYC before the race. Sleeping in a hotel with 3 other dudes after a night of basketball watching and hitting up the NYC drinking and eating establishments isn't what I would normally advise for a solid taper week ;) And that doesn't even get into the football and basketball we played, which beats up the body and then flying back the day before the race.

Did some walking and stretching. Got my endurox from Holly and talked with some of the other finishers. Watched as davidclough, coredump, and misskelly came in. Headed to the gym and got some of those hot pretzels. They are awesome. Did some more stretching and post game analysis with others.

Walked around with chris/kelly and cheered Whizz on.


See above on what would you do differently.


This is a great race, challenging course, good after race eats. Probably why it sells out in less than 24 hours. Great sweatshirt SWAG this year, too.