About Boston, I am still taking it in, even though a full day has passed, and I'm back home. I am very happy that I broke 3 hours. I truly tested my ability to the edge, and I held nothing back from the race. This is not to say I ran the perfect race - far from it, but this time, I was able to overcome my mistakes. 4:00 AM - wake up, 5:00 AM breakfast - french toast, cereal, muffin, banana, 5:15 - hotel shuttle to Subway station, subway to Boston Common, 6:00 - bus to Hopkinton, 6:45 - 9:30: a lot of waiting around - it was chilly, damp and gray before the start. They were going to have an Army parachute team do a jump onto the football field, but I don't think the weather cleared up in time for them to do it. At 9:30, I started making my way down to my corral for starting. I had waited a bit too long to be able to make one last bathroom stop before the start. As it was, I got to my corral at about 9:45 - just enough time to do some light stretching. The fog seemed to lift and the sun started coming out around this time. I had the feeling it was more crowded this year compared to last year - both the runners and spectators. The crowd support really was massive - I thought it was big last year, but yesterday's crowds eclipsed last year's. It seemed like there were very few spots where there weren't people lining the sides of the streets, and there were many spots where the spectators were several rows deep. There was always shouting from the sides - it was quite overwhelming! As you know, my goal was to come in under 3 hours. My strategy for doing this was to target 2:55:00 as a final time, with specific paces for each mile, depending on the topography of the course. I wore a pace band to keep track of the target mile times. I'll list below the target and actual times for each mile. Mile 1 - Relaxed, going along with the runners around me - I did have to weave around just a few times. Target - 6:44, Actual - 6:47, good! Mile 2 - Target - 6:43, Actual 6:23 - too fast - The first mile had warmed me up, and I was still running relaxed at what felt like the same effort as mile 1. Mile 3 - Target - 6:32, Actual 6:30 - good - It was still quite crowded on the road. I took my first drink around this point, and I would continue to take drinks every 2 or 3 miles for the rest of the race. Mile 4 - Target - 6:37, Actual 6:27 - too fast again Mile 5 - Target - 6:44, Actual 6:38 - closer, but too fast Mile 6 - Target - 6:34, Actual 6:41 - happy to pay back some of the surplus time Mile 7 - Target - 6:38, Actual 6:40 - good. Mile 8 - Target - 6:40, Actual 6:40 - good. Mile 9 - Target - 6:36, Actual 6:34 - good. Mile 10 - Target - 6:44, Actual 6:41 Mile 11 - Target - 6:44, Actual 6:50 Mile 12 - Target - 6:34, Actual 6:36 Mile 13 - Target - 6:38, Actual 6:42 Mile 14 - Target - 6:38, Actual 6:39 Mile 15 - Target - 6:42, Actual 6:48 Mile 16,17 - target - 13:17, Actual 13:46 beginning of the Newton hills - the real payback begins... Mile 18 - Target - 6:49, Actual 7:27 - I ducked into an available outhouse right next to the road - I felt it was worth a minute here, rather than adding to my struggles and losing more time in the final miles. Mile 19 - Target - 6:36, Actual 6:51 Mile 20, 21 - target - 13:42, Actual 14:26 Mile 22 - target - 6:36, Actual 6:50 Mile 23 - target - 6:43, Actual - 6:55 Mile 24 - target - 6:34, Actual - 6:52 Mile 25 - target - 6:42, Actual - 6:58 (Mile 26.2) - target - 8:07, Actual 8:23 Final Time: 2:57:55 Woo Hoo!!! Going too fast in the first five miles made it very difficult in the last ten miles. The plan was to take advantage of the early down hills, and go a bit faster in the beginning, but going even faster than planned was a big mistake. And really, for the last ten miles, I was just going at whatever pace I felt I could maintain for the rest of the race. I don't want to make it seem like it was all about the numbers. The whole experience was just incredible - being out there competing with all those runners, and having all those shouting people on the sides. Looking at the 5K, 10K, etc... splits, and from what I remember on the course, I think I may have caught up to Lance Armstrong somewhere around the 20K mark - at one point, I remember people cheering for "Lance", but I didn't know at the time it was him. It looks like he ran a well-executed race and finished very strong after a conservative start, so after 20K he was well ahead of me.