Race Report for Boston Prep 16 Miler (Read 845 times)

What a different a day can make here in New England when it comes to the weather. As I'm sitting here, the snow is coming down real hard. Cars are spinning their wheels and getting nowhere fast. Yesterday was sunny, and relatively warm (about 32 degrees). It was a great day to run the Boston Prep 16-miler in Derry, New Hampshire. I have a love/hate relationship with this race. This was my third time running it and I swore I would never do it again after the first time. The race sold out for the first time in its history. Rumor has it that the race director simply strung all the big hills in the area together as he was creating the course. Many people use it as a gauge for their Boston Marathon training. The consensus is if you can finish this race, then you can finish Boston. A week ago, I wasn't sure if I was going to race it, or do it as a training run. My longest run since the NYC Marathon was about 14 miles. I ran the first mile in 9:35, partly because it takes a long while for me to warm up, and partly because I was chatting with running buddies that I haven't seen in a long time. It was a whole minute slower than I planned for the first mile. After that, I picked it up and my pace for the flat parts of the course was around 7:30. There were four water stops along the way, and they come about every 3 miles. Traffic control was excellent. There was someone directing traffic at every intersection. There were a handful of vehicles along the race route, but they cordially yielded to us pig headed runners as we tried to cut the curves. The big hills on the course come late in the race. They start at around mile 9, and continue until mile 14. I walked up the steepest parts of the hills, figuring I'll catch up to the people that passed me once I get up to the top, which I did. The only salvation was the last two miles were relatively flat, allowing me to finish in 2:07:06. This is the second year that the race gave out finisher's medals. The medal was custom made for this race, and is better than most race medals, including marathons. It features the "moderately challenging" course elevation map. There was plenty of hot post race food to go around. I got my share of chicken noodle soup and chili. I'm happy (mostly relieved) that I finished. I'm sure I'll be cursing at it again next year.

Yes good luck! I'm going to qualify for boston this march in my first marathon and hopefully run it in 2007.

Sounds like a fun time. Being in oh-so-flat Michigan here, I would kill (perhaps not literally) for some resemblance of terrain in order to prepare me for Boston. I'd like to do a race or two prior to April, but there is not much in terms of distance, travel, and cost for me. Where are you in training for Boston and what is your goal? I'm in week 7 of Pfitz's 18/70 plan looking to hit somewhere between 2:50 and 2:55. Good luck with the rest of your training. ~~Mark D