Pauly's log has a great write-up on it

Yup.  Mine is here.  His brain was probably functioning better.  LOL, yeah, I don't know when I got the face wiping tick, sweat annoys me.  Probably a treadmill thing.

He is right, we did go out too fast, maybe not out too fast but after about 4 miles or so.  Competitive streaks die hard and I decided I wanted to keep the leader in sight and see what happened.  I never, ever led until mile 23.  Then I did not run all-out the last 5K because I was afraid I'd have some epic blowout and hand away a race I had won.

So I probably left 1-2 minutes on the course.  But tactically I think it was for the best.  Given my goal just to hit 2:50 and finish, if I'd let 3 guys blow out of sight I probably would NOT have bet on all of them blowing up and not run so hard.  This ended up being near-full effort and I'd not planned to run that hard.

IMHO I was the third best conditioned racer today.  The guys who ended up 2nd and 4th could have won it with different tactics.  Being the old fart in the lead pack has its advantages  

Absolutely no issues with the hip, so mission accomplished.

Big hats off to Pauly.  Not only did he provide much needed encouragement (he told me not to give up on the win when I'd already written it off), he prevented the lead back from staying on a wrong turn and cleared a path for us through the HMers going both directions.  He also provided excellent company for post-race beers.

Hot damn. Indianapolis RA will be representing at Boston next year.

Well done spaniel!

WTG, Spaniel!  Cheers!

(I can't be the only person who thought to themselves... "damn, I know a guy who won a marathon")

Hot damn. Indianapolis RA will be representing at Boston next year.

 

Well done spaniel!

Fantastic, Spaniel. Congratulations!