Race Report!

What an awesome day! I was so nervous at the beginning of the week and then I decided to let it go, it was either going to happen or not. I had pretty much convinced myself that a 3:15 was impossible and actually changed my goal to a 3:17, writing out the race plan and marking it as my "A Race" on Wednesday. Finally, I sat down on Saturday morning and started running some more numbers and decided to just give it a whirl, the only difference between the 3:15 and 3:17 was the last 9 miles.

David called around 7 on Saturday night and told me that he would be running Sunday morning. This totally had me pumped until I heard that he had run 18 in trails on Saturday morning on top of eating an entire bucket of chicken on Saturday night (He likes to eat.). He agreed to start out with me and be my running bitch for as long as he was able to stick it out. I started off slow like I planned and then picked up the pace a little on South First. David and Panther both stuck with me through the easy miles in the hills. We showed some great restraint because we all three were feeling pretty good, but we stuck to the plan through Exposition and up 35th. This paid off later.

We got to the 13.1 and then started dropping the hammer. It started with some MGP miles through 13-17 and then the plan was to pick it up to 7:10 with a 7:20 on Avenue H. We all three felt pretty great. Finally, as we kept getting more and more ahead of pace, David just said, "Let's just run how you feel." So, we did. We even passed the 3:15 pacers at the top of Dean Keaton and then dropped two minutes on them in the last 1.5 miles. I felt great on the hills! Even Dean Keaton! I kept telling Panther he did a great job because of how great I felt and then he told me to stop touching him or talking to him. I left him alone after that, he seemed pretty serious. I think he was a little worn out, seeing how this was his 4th marathon in 3 months!

We finished the second half in 4.5 minutes faster than the 1st half.
We did a 44 minute last 10K.
I PR'd by 18 minutes.
David ran a 3:12:59 the day after eating a bucket of chicken AND running 18 trail miles!
Panther qualified for Boston, yet again, on his fourth crazy marathon in 3 months.

I would say the day was a success!!!

Great job Panther. We all got our money's worth out of this training! I loved seeing Nick's family with Amy out there, plus all the CRAZY signs that were everywhere. What a great day, I think I've earned my day off tomorrow. That's right, I already called in sick!