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Another beautiful day in February found me toeing the starting line at Hampton Beach – awesome course, great volunteers, terrific organizers – I can’t keep myself away!  While the weather was not as warm as yesterday’s unseasonable high of 50, a 40 degree sunny day with mild winds was as good as I could have hoped considering it’s still New England in February.

It's a beautiful Day at Hampton Beach

My training for the Boston Marathon has been going very well. I just finished a speed training phase prescribed by Coach Beej, so I felt like a Personal Record (PR) was in the bag if I ran the race I had planned. As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more pleased.

The plan was to go out at 8 minutes/mile pace, my target for the marathon, and I would have been satisfied to hold that pace throughout, coming in at 1 hour 45 mins. If I felt particularly good, I figured I could pick up the pace toward the end of the race, and blaze down 1A along the ocean as I’ve been wanting to do on this course. The key was to fuel well before the race and avoid going out too fast. There was an 8:00 pace group leader, whom I easily found at the start, so I had a bit of a safety net there – though as I saw at Bay State, the pacer went out a little fast, so it’s not always great to bank on them for the first few miles.

I followed my usual pre-race routine. This time I had some Gu Chomps and a Honey Stinger during the hour before the race, since I didn’t plan on eating during my run. (Turns out the Chomps had caffeine – perhaps a little extra pickmeup didn’t hurt!) I was tempted to warm up a bit longer than I had in the past, but on Brian’s advice just did a few extra accelerations instead. Then we were off!

I came through the first mile at 7:51, and spent the next few miles settling into an 8 minute pace. I opted to stop a few seconds to drink water at miles 4, 6, and 9, which made them a few seconds slower, but I think worth the hydration. I typically surged going down hills to pick up a little time. At mile 8, I joined the 8 minute/mile pace group and planned to let them pull be along until mile 10. Then another little downhill came along, and I decided I was feeling good enough to start picking up the pace. From mile 9 through the finish, I just got a little faster each mile, to come in at 1:41:57 officially.

split              watchtime       mi        pace
0:07:51       0:07:51             1        0:07:51
0:08:01       0:15:52             2       0:07:56
0:07:56       0:23:48             3       0:07:56
0:08:13       0:32:01            4        0:08:00
0:07:49       0:39:50            5        0:07:58
0:08:09       0:47:59            6        0:07:59
0:07:44       0:55:43            7        0:07:57
0:07:45       1:03:28            8        0:07:56
0:07:47       1:11:15            9        0:07:55
0:07:38       1:18:53           10       0:07:53
0:07:38       1:26:31           11       0:07:51
0:07:24       1:33:55           12       0:07:49
0:07:20       1:41:15           13       0:07:47
0:00:44       1:41:59           13.1    0:07:47

Now *that* is the race I’ve been wanting to run!  And you can see by my smile with a half mile to go that I was feeling great.

Feeling great with a half mile to go!

Also, Brian was there to cheer me on and take a photo, plus I may have “chicked” a few guys there toward the finish, which is always a good motivation.

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Coach Beej (and Jack Daniels Running) says I am right on pace for a 3:30 marathon (which would be another PR) and confirms my training is improving my speed.  I am feeling good about the next 8 weeks of training!