Notes
Boston 2021 2:46:37
Disappointed but not devastated. Shaun crushed it. More later
... wow, I never really recapped this one. Here's the best I have - email to Coach MAC
Due to our slow moving group, we all missed the earliest buses and only Shaun, Manny, and I made it onto the second shift at 7:30. That ended up being *fine* - we had basically just enough time to walk jog to the start and go to the bathroom once before starting at 9AM, we had zero downtime in Hopkinton. I got out and tried to start hitting 6:00 pace right away, and didn’t really have any trouble even though it was really crowded. I felt great through the early miles (of course!) and was consistently 5:55ish at an effort that felt right - I was consciously trying to hit the brakes and keep it feeling easy (but also worried that I was gonna do that and slow down). I thought everything was pretty much going according to plan, until mile 15 which was a significant slowdown at 6:18. I think there’s an uphill there, but I just felt suddenly way worse than expected. Didn’t get time back like I thought I would on the huge downhill and then I just got thoroughly broken on the Newton hills. I don’t feel like I mentally checked out or anything, I was pretty focused on one mile at a time, but just didn’t have it. Was kinda in survival mode for the last 5 miles, not cramping or dehydrated or anything, just tired.
It was a little frustrating because the race kinda turned on a dime for me, but ultimately I just think I wasn’t as prepared as I needed to be for my goal. I do wonder if I could execute better on nutrition or whatever, but I don’t think i had that better figured out in the past for some better races so not pinning it on that.
I thought the workouts you gave were great, in that they were challenging and interesting and felt like they were leading somewhere. I think I ended up being not quite prepared enough for them - I totally whiffed on a few (4/3/2/1, alternator, 3x3 miles) and was probably working too hard on the most of the late week tempos. I did feel pretty good about the 18 mile steady, the tempo/hill workouts, and the dress rehearsal…but I think the fact that I never was really able to hit those longer rep workouts at or below 6:00 pace was a sign that i wasn’t ready. I think my mileage was pretty low / spotty for me, and I was just starting from a not-very-sharp place in terms of fitness coming off the COVID year. Anyways, I wasn’t too upset about the way things went; I think I’m in a good spot to hit the next cycle hard, and I’m ECSTATIC about Shaun’s performance.
APPENDIX
Checkpoint/2019/2022/Diff
5k / 18:41 / 18:27 / -14
10k / 37:05 / 36:54 / -11
15k / 55:39 / 55:37 / -2
20k / 74:13 / 74:23 / +10
HM / 78:15 / 78:27 / +12
25k / 92:56 / 93:16 / +20
30k / 1:52:10 / 1:53:27 / +77
35k / 2:12:02 / 2:15:00 / +2:58
40k / 2:31:47 / 2:36:45 / +4:58
Finish / 2:40:31 / 2:46:37 / +6:06