Nice day for a race. A little windy though. 12 to 20 mph sustained winds. My plan was to hang out with the 3:15 group for 18 miles, then go for it (sub 3:10), which is kind of what I did. 8:30 start, so I was able to sleep in a little, eat breakfast and jog the roughly 2 miles to the race start line.
Miles 1 through 4: 7:36, :17, :24, :15. Our pace group leader had lots of stories to tell. He talked a lot. We had a good group of about 30 people or so. We started out by heading south with the wind. Pace seemed easy at this point.
Miles 5 through 8 :7:19, :23, 24, :19 I eat gels like candy for this race going through 9 durning the race and as much water as I could stand. We had a hairpin turn at about 5.5 and headed into the wind for the next 10 miles. With the group we had it was nice to be able to tuck in.
Miles 9 through 12: &:18, :32, :21, :20. Again, most of this was right into the wind, along the beach. I figured keeping a slightly slower pace into the wind but staying close was a good gameplan.
Miles 13 through 16: 7:28, :23, :24, :21. We passed through the halfway point on pace (3:15's pace) at 1:37:32. Also all of our garmins were showing the route to be about 0.11 miles long at this time. Body still feeling good.
Miles 17 through 20: 6:45, :57, :41, :53. Its go time! The first miles and a half were not to bad. The wind was block by a woodsy area. After leaving that, it was straight into the wind again by myself. Effort was way up at this time. I had set my virtual partner at a 7:12 pace and I was 3:00 minutes behind at 16 miles. My goal was to catch it and stay in front.
Miles 21 through 24: 7:01, 6:57, :36, :27, :38. by mile 22 the wind was mostly to my back. I caught my virtual partner in mile 23 which felt great. Legs were stil pumping well. I took my last gel in mile 23 and just kept pumping as hard as I could.
Miles 25, 26, and 0.2: 6:38, 6:26, 2:13 (for 0.38 miles, yes a little long). It felt really good to pass through the 25 mile marker under 3:00 hours. By this time I was sure to qualify for Boston. Again, I still felt strong. Just kept pumping those arms and striding it out. 3:07:52 overall
PR
BQ
:)
Then a 2 mile jog back to the hotel.
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