Finally: My first Boston Marathon Qualifier

Crazy to think I wrote these very words on this blog in February 2014.

"Friends that are much faster than me are barely qualifying for Boston. I mean, geeze, I'd have to average a 7:05 pace for 26.2 miles. That is 1:25 faster than the fastest mile I ran in high school, and a faster pace than anything I could muster for 10k as an adult......As of 2013, my half marathon PR was a 1:37, improving on 1:42 from 2009, but even that projected out to a 3:14 marathon and I knew there was no way I could maintain the same pace for another 13.1 miles. Again, it seems my potential is a 3:20 to 3:25 marathon, though I have yet to run faster than a 3:33, and am still a long, long, way from Boston."

Well, as it turned out, this past weekend at the 20th Steamtown Marathon, I ran exactly a 7:05 mile pace and qualified for the Boston Marathon. To put it bluntly, qualifying for the Boston Marathon is literally something I never thought I would ever do. Granted, I am still keeping all this in perspective, as I know I'm not nearly as fast as many men and women out there. I am still largely a middle of the pack runner. In fact, I'd be lying to say I haven't been jealous of people who can easily run 20-30 minutes under their qualifying times year after year. For some, running Boston isn't a challenge and is just another race on the calendar. For me, I had never been fast enough to even entertain the notion of attempting to qualify. Boston was always a race for those fast runners, and I'd always have to settle being the spectator. Add the fact that I never had a pedigree in running, my high school personal best mile was a 7:30, and my V02 max was measured at a pedestrian 47. While I found moderate success at running longer ultras, it definitely seemed that I was better suited for slow and on trail, versus fast on road.

Splits:

10 miles- 1:09:52 and the half in
Half- 1:31:45.
Finish- 3:07:57
Fastest mile: 6:46 downhill
Slowest mile: 7:40 uphill
Nutrition: 5 gels taken at miles 7, 11, 15, 19, and 23

Notes: Though Steamtown is a fast downhill course, I calculated that my slowest 3 miles negated 10 of my fastest downhill miles. The math proves that. My slowest three miles (24, 25, and 26) took 22:42 and when averaged with my faster first 10 miles in 1:09:33, the pace for the 13 total miles was a 7:06, which is just slightly slower than my overall pace. In fact, Although the course has 955 feet of net downhill, it also has roughly 400+ feet of uphill, so it's really not a guaranteed PR course.