2010 Boston Marathon Race Report Part 5: The Race

"Challenge the Boston and you must be at your peak. Accept your limitation and, with care, the thinking runner will have a comfortable, creditable race. But go for broke and prepare to be broken." -Dr. George Sheehan

I underlined this quote on page 99 of Duel in the Sun, the story of Beardsley and Salazar's 1982 race, because I couldn't have said it better. Last year I battled sore calves. Although I never had to completely shut it down it hindered developing the 5K/10K pace I wanted to develop. When I started ramping up the miles the pain was gone and really never bothered me again. But what this nagging injury did do was prevent development of the VO2 max I needed to climb hills and push the pace in Boston, so I had to race conservatively.

The atmosphere at the starting line was so cool. You really feel like a big deal just being able to take part. Everyone around you can run. I was really proud to be able to give it a go. When the gun went off it was just a pop in the distance. It ended up taking almost 2 minutes to cross the starting line. I hit the Garmin and off we went. I had spent the whole day with my buddy BJ Vinyard. We were in the same corral, number 3, with all the other marathoners with a qualifying time just over 3 hours. We tried to ignore each other for the most part. I set off at 7:00 pace as planned. I had been warned about the array of "wierdos, freaks and lemmings" that would go screaming past in the early downhills and I just let them go. At one point I saw an Asian guy passing on the uneven grassy shoulder. He was just unwilling to show any restraint and couldn't help himself. I wouldn't say a lot of people passed me in the early miles, but there were quite a few. I really wanted to run 6:48 pace because I knew that would get me under 3 hours, but I also knew that it was risky to try and force the pace down. I figured I would run my race and see what pace that meant. Below are my splits for each mile. I had autolap set for 1 mile, so add 3 seconds to each split. Next is my average heart rate for each mile and last is my cadence.

1. 7:07 145 88
2. 7:04 154 89
3. 6:52 158 88
4. 6:47 160 89
5. 7:01 163 89
6. 6:52 162 87
7. 6:53 164 88
8. 6:56 164 89
9. 6:56 164 88
10. 6:58 163 88
11. 7:00 163 88
12. 6:51 163 88
13. 6:55 165 88
14. 6:54 166 88
15. 7:01 166 88
16. 6:45 165 88
17. 7:21 168 87
18. 7:19 170 87
19. 7:01 169 88
20. 7:21 169 87
21. 7:34 170 87
22. 6:47 173 88
23. 7:00 172 87
24. 7:03 172 87
25. 7:10 173 88
26. 7:13 174 87
27. 6:17 181 77 (.39 miles)

First Half: 1:31:52. Second Half: 1:33:30 (+1:38).

I'll finish up tomorrow.