Boston Marathon Race Report - Savitch

And now for Brian's Boston Marathon recap:

I wanted to run right at about 6:00 for mile one and settle into 5:55s for as long as possible. The tailwind made that pretty tricky as I was holding back and still way fast. My first ten miles were as follows:

1. 5:53
2. 5:49
3. 5:46
4. 5:48
5. 5:58
6. 5:53
7. 5:50
8. 5:54
9. 5:54
10. 5:57

I hit a little bit of a bad patch shortly after, but was looking forward to Wellesley to pick me back up. It did the trick and I made it through the half in 1:17:24. I was able to stay under 6:05s until the Newton hills. Around mile 17 or 18, I began to feel the effects of taking in too much water/gatorade in too short a period of time. I started to feel a stitch in my right side that turned nasty and brought me to a jog for a good mile or so. I was sure that my race was over at that point. Finally, I was able to concentrate on breathing deeply to work out the stitch.

I was ready to begin pushing hard again at around the bottom of Heartbreak hill. Great timing! But, I happened to hear Starship’s ‘We built this city’ playing on a radio and it helped me along. I somehow made it through 20 miles in 2:01:xx and was overly optimistic thinking I could run a 38 minute final 10k on the Boston course. Why do I always forget how absolutely horrible my legs felt the other times in Boston at this point in the race? My legs were on fire and I was just thinking about how angry I was that I made a deal with myself to not give in, no matter how hard things got. DAMNITALL!

At about mile 23, I saw some of the people I stayed with – Josh, Christy, and their 2.5 year-old son, Oz. Josh and Christy got everyone in their area prepared for my arrival and I was greeted with a huge ovation and Oz’s blowing on a vuvuzela. If that wasn’t enough, my stepsister, Rachel was volunteering at a water stop shortly after and provided quite a bit of noise. And then Alan and crew just before mile 25 was something else. It was just amazing that I was able to hear Alan over all of the drunk people calling me a leprechaun. Thank you, Alan!

Everything was kind of a blur until when I dipped under Mass Ave and could see people turning onto Hereford St. I started to pick up the pace as much as my legs would allow. I turned onto Boylston St and could see the clock at mile 26. I remember trying to figure out if the time on the clock was faster than what it read last year. Who cares, no more thinking – just run! Then I saw my biggest supporter, Farah, standing in front of the Prudential Center with a sign that read "You're the best...around, nothin's gonna ever keep you down." YES! I watched the finish clock as I approached the finish line. Holy shit, I think I might PR. I crossed the finish line and the clock at the finish line read: 2:41:43, my exact time from last year. Man, would I have been pissed if I ran the same exact time two years in a row on the same course.

My final time was 2:41:36, good for a seven second PR. I’ll take it and I’m not putting an asterisk on it either. All I know is that the Boston course sucks and I’m serious this time when I say I’m not running it again for a while. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.