Anyone here ever PR at Boston?

In reply to Q3:

Because it is hard to be patient in the beginning.

it all depends on the weather. If you catch a 'tailwind year, with the temp in the 50s to low 60s, many people catch prs. On the other hand; you catch a head wind year-forget it. The 3rd factor is the type of stride you have in relation to the slightly downhill 1st 1/2 of the race. It killed my quads and had me walking by 21 miles; as I have a somewhat 'heavy stride and foot plant'. Others with a lighter stride will flourish.

Boston was my 2nd marathon. I PR'd by a whopping 40 seconds...expected to PR by 5 minutes.

many Americans had prs in the years 1981 and 1983 when there was a nice tailwind. Check the results. 1984 on the otherhand had a cold headwind that was spitting cold rain.

The first 2/3rds of the course is down hill, but you wouldn't realize it. Its very rolling. Then there are three long hills. With heartbreak being the last major hill. After that you are still slowly climbing into Boston.

If you are not disciplined enough to be a tad conservative the first 16 miles, you can pay dearly the last ten.

No reason you can't PR on it, just have to race the course more so than some other marathon courses.

I PR'd on the Boston course in 1996. It was pretty crowded that year but I did get to start fairly close to the front. I think the course is fairly easy if you start our conservatively since you can make up a lot of time after getting through the hills.

seppokaitainen wrote:

The first 2/3rds of the course is down hill, but you wouldn't realize it. Its very rolling. Then there are three long hills. With heartbreak being the last major hill. After that you are still slowly climbing into Boston.

If you are not disciplined enough to be a tad conservative the first 16 miles, you can pay dearly the last ten.

No reason you can't PR on it, just have to race the course more so than some other marathon courses.

You obviously haven't run the race if you think "you slowly climb into Boston".

My PR is from Boston 05. Hot race too, I just really hit the day. Improved by 13 seconds over my then-PR from Berlin, which is a much faster course.

If it weren't for some injuries and other bad luck, Boston shouldn't still be my PR but it is and I'd say I'm unlikely to ever improve it.

My PR is from Boston 05. Hot race too, I just really hit the day. Improved by 13 seconds over my then-PR from Berlin, which is a much faster course.

If it weren't for some injuries and other bad luck, Boston shouldn't still be my PR but it is and I'd say I'm unlikely to ever improve it.

Is it hard to do? Not really, the downhill helps you, but hard to do on your first try because it is a tricky course. Key thing is to not push too hard from 15 to 17. You should feel fresh when hitting Newton and then drop the hammer on the uphill. After the downhill you either got it or you don't.

Crowds don't slow you down if you start in corral #1. Probably not in #2 or #3. But you'll end up wishing they had slowed you down just a little bit because Boston really fires you up for a fast start.

Ran a PR in Boston last year.

It was my 3rd marathon, I ran 1 min faster while trying to run 4-5 min faster. The problem was a cold headwind from a Nor'easter storm that went through the night before.

I was 2/3 back in the 1st wave and the crowd was thick for 4 miles. This was a blessing in disguise which kept me from starting too fast downhill. But, what did surprise me was the amount of concentration it took to not run over other people's heels and all the crap that they were dropping.

Go easy in the early miles and you will be fine.

Ante up wrote:

You obviously haven't run the race if you think "you slowly climb into Boston".

I've run it 3 times. I was top 300 in '04. But I guess the painful block or two to go up to Boylston Street buried any memories of down hill after heartbreak.

One correct but probably unsatisfying answer is that you can't get a personal record for the marathon on the Boston course because, being a significantly downhill course with the start and finish lines over twenty miles apart, it's not even close to being a record-quality marathon course.

But if you're wondering how hard it is to run faster on the Boston course than on a relatively fast record-quality course, then the answer is that it depends largely on the weather, which is tremendously variable in Boston at that time of year. If you get cool temperatures and a tailwind, and you are reasonably competent on hilly courses and can dose your effort properly throughout the race, then you can run significantly faster at Boston than you could on a record-quality course.

Of course, other races, like Chicago and London, have produced faster times at the front end. But those races have generally had much better fields at the front end, and have also had pacemakers who do double-duty as human windbreaks. When you compare times run at Boston in good-weather years with times run by similar (or the same) runners on record-quality courses, the Boston times hold up very well.

The mythology of the Boston marathon developed at a time when almost no one ran marathons, and -- outside of the Olympic Games -- Boston was just about the only marathon that anyone had ever even heard of. The Boston media (most notably, as I recall, a writer named Jerry Nason) recounted each year's race in terms akin to historical accounts of the Bataan Death March. The mythology stuck, even after marathons started springing up in every city like weeds in the cracks of concrete sidewalks, and everyone and his grandmother was joining in the parade.

I PR'ed on Boston in 2004 and again in 2005: two of the HOTTEST years on record.

Dunno why, just did.

2004 was first sub-3 (hey, I'm over 40...).

nutellalove wrote:

WHy is this course supposed to be so hard to PR?

Most people who fail to PR also fail to prepare and plan seriously enough for the course.

kom igen danmark!

nice pr. my pr was at the 100th. like you, it shouldn't have been my last pr, what with injuries.

mcrrc

got my all-time PR there... and would have lowered it, but it was warm - 70's - in 1999, when i was in the best shape of my life.

IMO, the course is more difficult mentally than on the body, tho the hills do beat up your quads a bit.

hard to stay in control when you drop 200 ft in 16 gently rolling miles

got my all-time PR there... and would have lowered it, but it was warm - 70's - in 1999, when i was in the best shape of my life.

IMO, the course is more difficult mentally than on the body, tho the hills do beat up your quads a bit.

hard to stay in control when you drop 200 ft in 16 gently rolling miles

seppokaitainen wrote:

After that you are still slowly climbing into Boston.

what planet do you live on?

look at the profile... the course drops more than 200 feet from the top of Heartbreak to the finish

I ran Boston 1:46 slower than my PR but due to the conditions that day and Boston being a tougher course than where I pr'd, I feel my effort at Boston was much better than my PR. So, yes and no!