Everything went really well for 18 miles. I was on pace to qualify for Boston (7:39 pace) and then out of nowhere I just bonked. Too fast..not enough training. In training I ran 20 miles at 8:00/mile a few weeks earlier and thought I had enough extra to at least give it a shot. The truth came out rather painfully. I sort of expected any failure to be a fading. This was just a death march. No harm done though. I finished my first Marathon and broke 4 hours. That's a pretty decent life event and I should be gracious enough to be happy about it. Boston only gets more valuable now that I know it's not easy.





Nothing really. I was simply underprepared for that distance. The whole thing was just a dare to see if I could qualify for Boston on Olympic triathlon fitness. Certainly this can be done but even my triathlon fitness was a shoestring budget affair, really.

Hobble


The distance


My best friend and I growing up in the 70's loved the Montreal Olympics and when Adidas track suits showed up in the stores we were all over it. We jogged like the athletes and pretended to "train". I moved away a year or so later and although we visited as kids from time to time, eventually we drifted apart. After college we reconnected again and went to each other's weddings. Michael ran a few marathons and it was inspiring to hear about them. I never really had the interest to train for one however. Well, I reported my race to Michael today and he sounds excited to go race something like the NY Marathon together. We'll have to get track suits again!