Felt great to start. Miles clicked off easily. Ditched the arm warmers and gloves before mile 3. Was surprised at the number of people ahead of me, even with clicking off 7:07 miles. Gels every 5 miles or so. Found a nice group of 7-8 folks all going at my 7:07-7:09 pace. They all fell off around mile 12 or so but I kept on pushing. Hit the halfway mark at 1:34:00 but I was measuring .1 long so I knew I didn't have a lot of wiggle room on the way back. Started getting knots in my right calf pretty early but it wasn't my typical calf cramp twing, just a tight knot on the inside of my calf.

Second half started well and went as planned. Got through mile 20 and still felt pretty good. That changed pretty quickly between 20 and 22. Pace was slowing a bit but it was getting harder to hold the pace. Mile 22-23 had me the most concerned as it was getting really hard to hold 7:15 pace and was worried about a big slowup over the next few miles. That was gut check time. Worked too f^%king hard to not fight through the last few miles even if the pain was terrible. Dug deep and HTFU for miles 22-24.

Breathed a huge sigh of relief when I hit the 2m to go mark and realized I had 17 minutes to cover 2 miles and still come in under 3:10. At this point I relaxed quite a bit and tried to take it all in as i knew at that point I would BQ unless I fell or cramped. Nice short strides and slowed the pace down to 7:20-7:30. Huge smiles from me the last mile. Saw the official clock reading 3:08 something and threw my arms up and let out a big damn "hell yeah, Boston baby" as I crossed.

Six months of hard hard work finally paid off for this BQ squeaker. May not actually get into Boston due to demand, but at least I knew I qualified!



Probably use the Pfizinger 12/55 plan instead of the 18/55 plan. The 18 week plan put me into "burnt out" mode in late March, early April. Plan was very intense from the get go. Other than that nothing. Was perfect race for me and can't imagine doing any better.

Grabbed some water, pepsi, banana, etc. After finishing I immediately felt terrible in my stomach (which is pretty normal for me). Against my better judgement, I had a huge bowl of Moomers cherry Ice cream (that didn't help my stomach). Went out to the finish to watch my wife finish and then headed back to the hotel. Stomach was still killing me. Had to go get pepto and was doing shots of it at Right Brain brewery in between beers. Finally, after 5 shots of pepto, stomach got closer to normal, just in time to pound it with sushi.

What makes the day even more special than a BQ is that today was also my wife and I 10th wedding anniversary. Yes, we ran a marathon to celebrate 10 years of being together. When we met, we were both over weight and out of shape recent college grads. Now we are on a mission to run a marathon in every state. This was state #6 for me and #7 for my wife.


This was just an awesome race in an awesome town. Everything was great and didn't have one complaint. The course is beautiful with lake views for 95% of the run and was "gently rolling" flat which kept all the leg muscles in use. Volunteers were great and the crowd support was surprisingly good. We were shocked at how beautiful this area of michigan was!