BostonBound59

When I ran my Boston qualifier in Scranton, Pennsylvania at the Steamtown Marathon in October 2008 I had a general idea of my overall pacing goals but really didn't break those pacing goals down by important factors such as course terrain, stage of the race etc. Despite my vow to hold back the early miles I flew like a knucklehead through the first half at 7:05-7:20 pace hitting the 13.1 mark at 1:35 but then struggled mightily during the last half closing in 1:48. In contrast, Cathy ran more even splits at the Maine Marathon in 1:34/1:42 (3:16) which contains some difficult hills the 2nd half of the race. While I did qualify for Boston I left Pennsylvania feeling like I hadn't run very smart and that if I had held back the first 2/3 of the race, I could have closed in a much stronger fashion. My 18 mile split at Steamtown was just under 2:14 (3:15 pace) but I was working much harder each and every mile and was well over 8 minute pace and by the time I reached 22 miles, I was being passed in droves by faster (and smarter) runners. I did finish in 3:23:55 but I've vowed not to let that happen again. The link below is well known to many Boston veterans and I picked it up off the Gate City Striders message board forum after it was posted by fellow Strider Dan Dugan last year (Dan will be running Boston again this year). It is an incredible tool and allows you to plug in your race goal and general strategy (fast or slow start, slow or fast finish etc) and it spits out your splits based on the Boston terrain. It also provides your 5k splits through 40k. Here is the link: http://www.box.net/shared/75o3rqgty9