Hey guys,
OTQ'd yesterday. Previous poster who got the time pretty much already said this but since there still seems to be a lot of hate over the course, here's my 2 cents.
I've run 2:20 a few times at regional marathons, usually winning by 5 minutes and not having bottles/anybody to run with. Fun tempo efforts but kind of hard to push myself all alone. The biggest thing that led to my PR yesterday was running with a group of 20ish guys for almost the whole race. Went out with the "OTQ" group that was running a little too fast, 68:26 at the half. Every aid station guys would pass water, Maurten, etc. It was the first race I have ever done that felt more like a group effort than a "race" like Boston/NYC etc. When guys dropped off the pack, almost every time one of us would say "come on man, 5 miles, get back here with us!". I started to hit some mental low points and was able to maintain my pace by just forcing myself to stick with the group of guys I had shared about 20 miles with already. This was huge. Yeah the last 10k is awesome, but I averaged the same pace for the last 10k of Boston a few years ago.
When you get 100 guys who have been practicing trials pace for months (most former Division 1 athletes with low/sub 14 5k PRs), willing to go out at PR pace, and working together instead of against each other, yeah a bunch are going to run a good time in favorable weather. Find it kinda stupid in the same week we get threads like "why can't American marathoning be deep like it was in the 70s and 80s!" and then people upset a bunch of people ran good times.