Goal was to break 3:05 to qualify for Boston 2015 AND for the JFK 50-Miler.

Mentally broke this up into 10 miles, 10 miles, 10K. Focused on trying to hit just under 7:00 for the first block, then try to maintain that pace for as long as possible through the second block, and then to push it within reason for the 10K.

I also knew that I needed to be very careful about heart rate along the way. I needed to run 7:00 pace but not get up into the high 160s too much. So I shot for stabilizing around 165 (or lower).

Ended up crushing the first 10 miles. I hit 7:00 fairly easily. However, by mile 10, I was starting to feel like the 7:00 miles were not THAT easy. I knew that the next 16 would be tough. Thankfully, I had Phil pacing me. The goal was to mentally tackle each mile and run at or right below 7:00. I was able to do this, at least for the first 6 or 7 miles of the block. But by mile 18, things were getting tough. I was now in a mile-by-mile game--each one was challenging and required complete mental focus. I did not want to go any faster than 6:50 pace, but I also could not afford to go any slower than 7:05 pace. As a result, we hovered right around 6:54.

Hitting mile 20 was a blessing, but I knew that the road ahead was still very long. I made it to mile 22 without starting to feel excruciating fatigue, but at that point, it was pretty devastating. I was holding 7:00 pace, but only just barely, and I certainly couldn't imagine maintaining that pace for another 30 minutes (4 miles). Again, I broke the race down into mile sub-segments. In fact, I really broke things down into half-mile segments.

Those last 4 miles were a blur. I have no idea what was going on in my head. I was also quite depleted on the electrolyte front, so I wasn't able to process and forecast my paces.

With 2 miles to go, I became desperate. I had Phil block the wind which helped. But this was really really slowgoing. Even though I was still running sub-7:00, it felt like I was going all out (and I really was!). Coming into the last mile, I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to hold the pace to break 3:05. But I tried anyways. With about a half mile to go, I decided I'd try and pick up the pace a little, knowing that at any point I could break. As soon as I saw the finish line archway (w/ probably a 1/3 of a mile left), I basically went into a full-on sprint. This was painful. Painful!

I really wouldn't do much differently--this was a perfect run! I ran such even splits that I should really be proud of what I just accomplished. Hooray!

None. Ate 2 bagels, 5 jam pastries, had a bottle of water, and a cup of chicken broth.


I didn't train as much as I'd have liked for this. Then again, this winter was brutal, so the amount of training that I put in was actually quite amazing.