"56 degrees Fahrenheit, a 6 mph tailwind - but 93% humidity"

no YOURE hilarious wrote:

800 dude OMG LOLOLOLOLOL

Thank you letsrun and you crazy posters for giving me some laughs.

What was crazy about his post? Seems logical to me

All things considered the conditions were'nt bad, but not good either. I spoke to 2 people who ran and they both under performed and said it felt warmer than 60 degrees. They said they were pretty sweaty only a couple miles in. I think if you were coming from the south, it was probably close to what you have been training in, but for NE guys, it was probably 10 degrees warmer than their training temps.

When I ran 2016, I remember it being a pleasant day in Hopkinton. The sun was out, it was comfortably warm, and I was thoroughly enjoying being outside. I walked from group to group, talking to a bunch of my friends (I'm from the area, so not to brag, but "people know me" ). When I lied down, I chose a spot out in the open with my face up in the sun. It was the nicest day we'd had in a while, so I was making the most of it and enjoying every second.

Then the race started. Right at mile 1, I realized that I screwed myself. I was exhausted. I felt sluggish, tired, and worked. I felt like I hadn't tapered, and I had spent an entire day out on my feet already. Things only worsened, and I had the slowest race of my life (huge positive split and 2:50+ finish). 2016 was beautiful running weather, but it was a bit too hot to be ideal racing weather, and if you didn't respect that, you would pay the price (as I did). I never forgot about that.

Enter 2019. Weather forecasts initially predicted pretty ideal conditions - 50s with rain, and the possibility for a tailwind. I, like most, was psyched. As race day approached, the forecasts changed to 60s, humid, and no rain. I thought back to 2016, and decided to take measures to prevent a repeat failure.

Day before the race, I chugged water and Gatorade throughout the day. I woke up on race morning and chugged some more. On the bus ride to Hopkinton, I continued to drink. When I got to the High School, I immediately went under a tent, lied down, and chilled. I didn't take in any sun. It didn't feel too hot, and everyone was commenting on how nice it was, but I kept telling myself that it was not a fast day. In my head, it was 100-degrees and sunny.

There are water stops pretty much every 1-2 miles. At every table, I took 3 cups of water, threw on one my back, one in my face, and one in my baseball cap. I took 1 Gatorade and sipped it each time too. I was soaked by mile 3, but it wasn't from sweat, it was from water. I felt cold when a cross breeze came through, so I knew I was doing things right.

I ran conservatively (I wanted to be in the 2:26s. I went out in 5:40s). Spectator shouted to my group at 5K that we were in 210th or something. I continued to take a shower at every water stop until I hit the last 10K stretch on Beacon. I don't think I was passed a single time from mile 10 to the end. I went 1:13:28-1:13:21 for a 7 second negative split and finished in the 50-60th place range.

I didn’t PR, despite being in much better shape than I was when I ran my PR, but I was close (20 seconds), and I felt very proud of my race. It was obvious that most people thought that they were racing in ideal conditions, because of how many people were ahead of me at the 5K mark. It was cloudy while we were waiting to start in Hopkinton, so I think a lot of people made the decision that this was a PR year. It wasn't. It was another "sneaky hot" year, exactly like 2016. If you respected that heat, then it was entirely possible to run a very good race, and a Boston Course Specific PR, but not an overall PR...

TLDR: 2016 was a really nice day to run but was sneaky too hot to race fast. I ran it that year, didn’t respect how hot it was, and consequently ran the worst race of my life. 2019 was very similar. I ran this year and convinced myself that I was preparing to run in 100-degree temps. I took the measures to run well in the heat, and while I didn’t PR, I did run a very solid race, negative split, and beat a ton of people who I could tell did not respect the conditions of the day.

TrackCoach wrote:

All things considered the conditions were'nt bad, but not good either. I spoke to 2 people who ran and they both under performed and said it felt warmer than 60 degrees. They said they were pretty sweaty only a couple miles in. I think if you were coming from the south, it was probably close to what you have been training in, but for NE guys, it was probably 10 degrees warmer than their training temps.

That was my take, too. I should have bumped my starting pace down by 5-10 sec per mile and I would have avoided the fade I experienced at the end. Part of that is Boston doing Boston, but I felt the warmth whenever I went through windless sections and when working the rollers even before Newton. It was fine, and I’d take it all day over last year (or even ‘17), but it was too warm/humid for me to consider it “good.”

FAZ-

Sounds like you came in with a game plan and executed it well. Great split!

For me, and possibly for others, while I knew it wasn't ideal conditions, I did not know how my body would react to the weather. This was my first spring marathon, and even at the start of the race it wasn't clear if the dew point was going to stay 55ish or 60ish, which I think would have made a big difference.

I too was soaked from throwing water all over myself, and did everything I could right prerace, but it wasn't until mile 8 or so until I realized that the humidity was going to get me, and even then I wasn't certain. In this particular race I think it's hard to blame people for not respecting the conditions of the course, since I think a lot of people didn't know what they were up against until it was happening (had a cooling rain come through 2 hours earlier, it might have saved a lot of people). Had it been 65 or 70 at Hopkinton, then it would have been more obvious. There also was virtually no reporting prerace at how heat was going to be a problem... the facts were there if you investigated, but it was not the narrative being reported.

I agree, I think the weather being on the cusp made the day tricky, as you didn't know to adjust your pace. After 7 or 8 miles. I realized I was working way too hard and adjusted down my pace goal (but at this point, it wasn't much of a choice). I thought on a perfect day I could go sub 2:45 and I ended up running sub 2:50. Maybe a more realistic idea of the shape I was in was for the Boston course was 2:47, but being a woman it's hard to make the goal just off the OTQ! 3 other women I was running with didn't adjust, and I got them all on the Newton Hills. Oh well, live to fight another day.

I'm not sure if I just never followed results that closely before, but I knew a bunch of people that blew up this year. If the humidity got to you, you're definitely not alone.