Ran Boston's Run to Remember on Sunday. 1209 folks finished in front of me and another 2800 finished after. It was a well executed event.
I was very impressed with the official pace runners. I stayed near the 8:00 minute/mile pacer and he got us to the mile right at 8, the 2 mile right at 16, and the 3 mile at 24. And this is working with the crowds through the start, multiple turns, some ups, some downs as we wound our way through down town Boston and out to Memorial Drive. I stayed on this pace but somehow ended up in front of them during one of the water stops. No matter, the 8 minute miles kept coming through the 8 mile mark at 63:50 then I started tiring.
The last five miles were where the "work" part of my long "workout" was taking place. 8:10, 8:20, 8:40, 9:10 and finally 1.1 miles in 10:00 to finish at 1:48:37. Not bad for these old legs.
The 8 minute mile pace group did pass me between miles 9 and 10 but I had to let them go.
A Norfolk County Pacer buddy came up between mile 10 and 11, and I had to let him go. He was a late entry to the race. I had not expected to see anyone from the club.
I dug out my old running log book to check on the half that I had run once before, actually in 1978 when I was preparing for the Ocean State Marathon held in Newport that year. In Westerly, RI on October 15th, I ran the half in 1:22:23. Those were younger legs!
While this will be a run to remember, I hope my legs try and forget some of this quickly. One of the reasons, I have no plans for another marathon is it simply takes too long to prepare and too long to recover. I prefer to do more frequent races (about once a month) at a shorter distance (5K or 10K). These are much more fun.
This workout showed me that I will be ready for some good runs this season. The first 8 miles were comfortable at that pace. There is some speed still left in these legs.
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