Training Log for a 2:30ish Boston Marathon 2018

Bib 463 - Aaron Heun - Send me fast vibes!

Ive trained in plenty of worse weather than this and I feel like I have 2 minutes to spare between current fitness and my 2:35 goal, so Im going for it tomorrow. Only time Ive met my goal was 37 with 25 mph winds at Philly (granted it wasn't point to point.) Gonna draft as much as I can and enjoy the perfect running temps.

Another guy to root for is my college teammate and pseudo-training partner Ben Zywicki, bib 979 (2016 OTQ) whose been lurking this thread on occasion. He's had a run of sub-par races and got left out of the BAA elite field. They put about 5 guys with recent Boston qualifiers under 2:25 in the 97X bib numbers, not sure why.

Good luck to all on this thread. I've enjoyed following and contributing.

So I followed all the runners that shared their info here, along with some local runners. Congrats on simply finishing. Looked rough out there. I don't times really mattered too much today.

Looks like kytrailrunner had a good overall finish, even if the time goal was way off.

Boulderunner almost met his time goal, despite the conditions.

reed put up a good fight and still finished under 2:40.

Agreed - those were some gritty performances for those conditions.

Also, as mentioned by Boulderunner, Ben Zywicki got 13th overall in 2:28:06.

Indiana resident and former Purdue runner Tate Schienbein finished 17th overall in 2:28:53.

I blame Reed for my bad performance. The elites who fared better wore windbreakers.

Didn’t do as well as I hoped (2:54, hoped to beat sub-2:50) but I wore a super thin windbreaker for the entire race.

My watch died so it's not on Strava, but I'm pretty sure I shook Reed's hand at the finish line. I finished 6 seconds behind him in 2:39:40. I was wearing the white singlet, black arm sleeves, compression shorts, and a white Nebraska hat.

Tough day out there, my eyes hurt from the rain... and now I'm back at work.

Anyone running it back for Chicago?

AndyDufresne2 wrote:

My watch died so it's not on Strava, but I'm pretty sure I shook Reed's hand at the finish line. I finished 6 seconds behind him in 2:39:40. I was wearing the white singlet, black arm sleeves, compression shorts, and a white Nebraska hat.

Tough day out there, my eyes hurt from the rain... and now I'm back at work.

I know your name but don't recall seeing you at the finish in particular...but obviously I was a bit tired lol.

curious how much you thought the wind/conditions slowed you down. also, what do you think you could've run in a time trial, perfect conditions, etc, with competition.

and for the record, AndyDufresne was like 20 seconds behind me at halfway, then gained 5 seconds on me by 30k, but by 35k I was 35 seconds ahead. that makes sense because I started to feel good for a few minutes around 22mi, but it was short-lived and you made up most of that in the last 7k, officially 10 seconds behind me but maybe closer by gun time. I think I see you in my finish line photos but you don't have a bib showing...did you have a beanie or a hat?

I bet Andy was in at least 2:29 shape on a good day (both in terms of weather and his personal performance). He was :10 ahead of me in the half at Houston, and I honestly think I had 2:30 fitness if it was a good weather day and I had a good day. You know, if I had actually made it to the line like you guys did.

Smoove wrote:

Anyone running it back for Chicago?

Chicago would be fun but CIM is my local race (runs within a few blocks of both where I grew up and my current house) plus I can get in the elite field for free, with bottles if I want.

2:29 at CIM 2018. Whoever wants to come sit behind me can watch me do it, but I might ask you to trade leads at some point.

as for a race report, I'll keep it brief.

if anybody is curious about my all-time competition record against Molly Huddle, Shalane Flanagan, Desiree Linden, Galen Rupp, et all...it's 1-0 in my favor. That probably won't change for a few years either unless one of them does CIM (unlikely).

I ran 2:39:32 which is a whole lot better than 2:40 so that's one good thing. Another good thing is that I "beat" Desi. Yeah yeah...different race...I know.

okay...the race report. I arrived Saturday morning after a red-eye that I could barely sleep on. Maybe an hour, 90 minutes tops of low-quality sleep. Saturday I walked way too much but didn't run so it probably was negligible. My eating was all messed up as I just grazed through the expo for lunch (clif bars all day basically). I went to a Nike event around dinner so had a few beers courtesy of Nike plus some soft pretzels they had available. Chatted for a couple hours and managed to talk my way into being a wear tester again pretty soon. Can't say more than that but I totally recommend checking out wear testing for guys out there with feet size 10ish. Nike does size 10 and Brooks does 10.5. Later I got some gatorade and beef jerky at a 7-eleven for the second half of my dinner. meal of champions!

Don't recall when I went to bed but slept well, but not well enough to make up for the night before.

Sunday was much less walking, I pretty much just hung out at the expo at the CIM tent (it's put on by my club). 4 mile shake out in the snow felt fine but not great. Standard pre-race dinner of home-made pasta dish. ate a lot as the race starts much later than normal. Slept fine on Sunday night, from 10:45ish to 5:30ish waking up a few times briefly.

Started to get nervous driving to Hopkinton, as it was pouring rain and there was snow on the ground from the day before.

Was underdressed for athletes village...wore my race gear + a goodwill rain jacket and sweats. needed another layer, a sweatshirt would've been awesome under the jacket. avoided getting wet though...had throwaway shoes and extra socks too. at the start I wore cheap gloves, armwarmers, a singlet, hat and half tights. buff under the hat to keep head warm. it was fine although my hands were numb but not frozen.

plan for the race was basically to forget about splits and run by feel. I figured that would be 76mid-77mid for halfway but wasn't too concerned. I knew I wanted to save something for the downhill last 10k. I got out a bit slow, 6:05ish, then settled into low 5:50s probably. 18:20 at 5k and 36:33 at 10k. Was in a pack that blocked most of the wind if not all of it. 54:59 at 15k and I was still happy with how it was going. I was looking at mile splits but not calculating a finish time or anything. I'll post all my split later.

Anyway...I got dropped by the good pack before halfway but still was in a small group until Newton hills. Half split was 77:28 which felt smart enough but not very comfortable. That's 5:54 pace which is exactly what I did last weekend for that 10 miler at marathon effort.

to make a long story short I didn't feel great but maintained position in the hills from 16 to 21 but when I tried to get rolling after Heartbreak Hill, I just couldn't. I didn't feel too cold, just had dead legs basically. Ran like 6:20-6:40s the rest of the way, just making sure I'd be under 2:40 honestly. Maybe left some time out there in the last 4 miles. I think the cold I picked up in Boston did me in, plus some lack of fitness from missing some key workouts.

not that sore tuesday or today