Notes
2019 Boston Marathon, marathon #6.
PRE-RACE:
Got an okay amount of sleep all week, picked up Jrt and Alison from the airport early Saturday morning. We had a chill day playing Dominion as promised. Paul came on Saturday evening and we did the expo etc Sunday, had Panera for lunch and then a nice pasta + salad dinner Sunday night. Barely slept at all... probably fell asleep ~11pm, woke up 3 times to go to the bathroom, woke up at 4:30am to fire alarm chirping... s'all good, felt very alert on waking up.
Got out of bed at 5, took a hot shower, had a cup of coffee, we got an Uber at 5:55 to Arlington. Waited quite some time for GBTC to rendezvous (*cough* Manny *cough*) and ended up on the Wave 2 buses. A ton of rain rolled through while we were in the bus line / on the trip to Hopkinton, also I had to pee reallllly badly - but the weather cleared up by the time we had arrived. Ate 2xPB bagels on the bus, didn't feel that hungry. Went to the bathroom 3x total, 2x in the village + once in the CVS lot. Got in the back of corral 1 with Jrt & the guys, avoided the dude gleefully urinating on the downhill road, had a GU at 9:57. The elite men started at 10 and we were off at 10:02 this year.
EXPECTATIONS:
Based on my relative fitness compared to BM18 + Philly, PRing at 15k / 10 mile / 5k, and having a long string of really solid workouts including my best ever MP tempos over the hills, I was very confident I was in shape to break 2:40. At the same time, very disappointing races at New Bedford & Upton kept me pretty grounded and wondering if I had worn myself down early in the cycle or left my race out in workouts. The last two weeks of the "taper" didn't really change my feelings either way, and the forecast turning a little warmer in the final days made me nervous as well and suspect that I should maybe pull the reins back a bit. Paul didn't really seem interested in running together as he was also nervous about a Boston '17 style race, so I decided to stick in corral 1 to get the boost of starting with my training partners (ran with them for approx. 1 step) and to run with Jarrett for at least some of the race. I decided that since this wasn't going to be my last Boston or my last marathon, there was really no need to swing for the fences - I could aim for another chunk PR and if I felt great at the end all the better. I planned on pacing roughly in accordance with the spreadsheet for a 2:39, to give myself a little buffer - wanted to run low 6s through 15, roll down 16, get through the hills ~6:15 average and then blast the last 5 miles. I was really cognizant that the last 5 miles was gonna be the hardest of the race - I knew that it's a trap to feel "accomplished" at 21 miles and not be ready to work hard at the end, so was trying to brace myself for a hard finish rather than thinking I was gonna be able to cruise home to victory. Finally, I tried to take Shannon's advice and throw all that planning out the window on race morning and just go with what felt right :)
THE RACE:
Starting in C1 was pretty nice actually - it had the same "just jogging" feeling as the past two years, but without any weaving at all I was down to goal pace by mile 2. Only a 15s differential between gun and net time. The start is pretty funny, to me it feels very underwhelming, months of anticipation and then the race begins with a whimper. I figured it would sink in that I was racing a few miles down the road. Jarrett didn't seem in a mood to go HAM from the gun, so went for the chill route of just running with him rather than worrying too much about what pace I wanted to run (although I was very aware of the pace). It felt pretty warm to me right away, so I took water or gatorade the whole race - even grabbed an entire water bottle from a spectator early on (and threw it away maybe 200 yards down the road...) My goal for the first 15 miles was to have a lot of fun and enjoy the day, I did a lot of high-fiving, enjoyed the cheers for Boston/GBTC/moustache, saw lots of family & friends including a surprise spotting of Z in Natick Center! Kept talking to Jarrett about the course / pace, probably to an annoying extent but was trying to keep my positive vibes going.
By 10k, our pace hadn't really settled back any from the fast early downhills, and I had a sense that we were rolling. I think Jarrett and I may have agreed to slow down a bit, but we didn't really. I decided I was fine with it, I didn't reallllly think I was gonna be able to run 5:50s the whole way so maybe this was foolish, but I figured that I felt great, I probably wasn't gonna fall off that hard, and maybe I was just having a day. When the pace continued to be quick through 15k, 20k, halfway, I was actually starting to convince myself that we were gonna smash the 2:40 barrier - we were on 2:36:30 pace! So I forged on with happy memories of crushing the hills on my last two tempos (knew they would be hard but I could get over them). On the uphill mile 15 I had a first negative sign, I started feeling pretty nauseous and actually felt like I might puke - taking my 2nd GU (took the first in Natick @ mile 7) actually seemed to help and gave me a boost. Flew down the hill into Newton Lower Falls as planned, felt strong aerobically and muscularly and actually put some distance on Jarrett. Time for the hills, now my race was on! Again I felt really nauseous on the first climb, I actually thought it was funny because Katie was at ~17 and had said she would only come watch the marathon if she didn't have to see anyone puke, I thought it would be pretty special if I hurled right when I went by... for better or worse the nausea subsided again as I passed my family and I felt o.k. turning onto Comm Ave. Firehouse Hill was really tough, I didn't slow down any more than expected but it felt hard and the nausea was back, pretty much off and on the rest of the race. Jarrett passed me back at the top which actually helped, I wasn't worried about beating him but it gave me someone to focus on running with & even talking to again... knew my coworkers would be at mile 20, so used that as motivation to try and look strong through the baby 3rd hill heading into HBH. Pace suffered as expected up the hill, but I got going down the hill as hoped... reached for my final Gu in Cleveland Circle and dropped it! Gah... may have needed that.
I knew Beacon street would suck, but it was really awful. Last year I was hurting and it was much harder / slower than I'd hoped, but I was crushing people. This year I was probably passing some people but it sure didn't feel like I was moving up through the field... I held the pace together o.k. , but legs were dead and felt really slow. Felt like I couldn't push myself like I wanted to, I was thinking back to that tempo up Beacon and wondering why I couldn't get myself to run like that now... needed ~6:15s for the last two miles to get under 2:40 and I don't think I was even shooting for it, just hoping that it would happen by some miracle because I didn't have much confidence in myself to get back there. Saw Erik H in the distance, he ended up being the 2:40 cutoff but didn't come anywhere close to gaining ground on him. Just wasn't in the mindset I wanted to be for the last few miles, it was "get to the finish" rather than "crush these last miles". Saw the big clock ticking past 2:39 when I turned onto Boylston, had a fairly wimpy final kick.
THOUGHTS
Can't complain about this one! I missed my goal of sub 2:40 (and I thought I could go even faster) but I got a chunk PR, a big PR on the course, got the GOATlist time, and had what I'd say is a much stronger performance than at Philly. Finished ~150 spots worse than last year, but I don't know that this was necessarily a "worse" performance - lots of people just really didn't cope well with the conditions last year and I handled them fine. I'd say the weather for this wasn't anywhere close to perfect (I felt pretty warm & humid) but still definitely the best I've gotten at Boston, so glad I got a PR out of it.
Hard not to be a little bummed because I do think a sub 2:40 was very possible today. I felt really good aerobically & muscularly for a long time, and the nausea stuff was pretty weird - not sure if I didn't hydrate sufficiently leading up to the race? I dunno, 31s is not much, maybe that last GU could have saved me from bonking at the end. The pacing was clearly suboptimal given the 78:15/82:16 half splits, but it wasn't tooooo bad - I don't really regret going out a little faster with Jarrett since it made the race pretty fun and I really felt pretty good about it for much of the way (I know that's an illusion of the course, but still...) I'm not mad at myself that I "cratered' the final miles (I wasn't too much slower than Philly) but it was still disappointing since I was ready for that to be hard and I feel like I should have had more there. I know this is the mystery of the marathon for everyone, but need to figure out what has to change to have that last 5 miles of the race feel like a hard but doable finish to any other hard race rather than just wanting the darn thing to be over and wondering if it's really possible that this is the fastest you can go. I know Norcross said he felt great in the final miles of Philly, so it's possible!
This was a good race, it wasn't exactly how I expected it to go as I was a lot faster for much of it than I thought would be while feeling great, then felt really bad much earlier than expected but worked through it well, then felt dead on the inside at the end but still didn't slow down *that* much. And it was a PR. I'll take it. But, not gonna have Jarrett for another one of these things so I better make the jump if I want to have company!
Unsure if I'll do a fall marathon, better than 50% odds at this point I think but we'll see what the guys are doing. Definitely want to get fit over the summer and crush it at B2B. On to the next one.
APPENDIX A: Pacing notes
Checkpoint/"Goal time"/Actual Time/Diff
5k / 18:44 / 18:41 / -3
10k / 37:24 / 37:05 / -19
15k / 56:12 / 55:39 / -33
20k / 74:56 / 74:13 / -43
HM / 79:02 / 78:15 / -47
25k / 93:40 / 92:56 / -44
30k / 1:52:44 / 1:52:10 / -34
35k / 2:11:54 / 2:12:02 / +8
40k / 2:30:38 / 2:31:47 / + 69
Finish / 2:39:00 / 2:40:31 / + 91
So I gave up 1m43s from 30k - 40k, and then another 22s in the final 2k (facepalm)