How many of your friends are FLOPPING at Boston right now?

All of my close friends running (6 of them) had the hammer dropped on them. The worst was the guy who went out in 1:23 and ended up finishing in 3:42. Ouchie.

That's terrible. I'd be totally devastated. 1:37 on the back end would have been a respectable bonk but

3:42?

3:42?

Playoffs?

Playoffs?

I ran it. I even backed off from the start, planning to run 15-20 min slower than my PR. And even with approach I still felt like hammered dog shit by mile 23. I got home on fumes and struggled to avoid locking up with cramps in the last 2 miles. Finished 30 min over my PR in the 3:15 neighborhood. My quads feel like warm piss right now. I can't imagine where I'd be if I tried to push my normal pace from hopkinton. Hell no.

My NCAA All American teammate from 30 years ago, as gracious and humble of a guy as there ever is, ran predictably today (for him)t. He was obviously was careful in the heat, and ran relatively even splits to finish well. My other teammate started off fast, but clearly was impacted by the heat. I was worried about them (likely shouldn't have been), but am glad they finished. Fitzwell's message reminds me that finishing today is an accomplishment in and of itself.

bangalangadanga wrote:

i've got a friend who has a pr of 3:03.

was jogging the race for charity (1:45 through 13.1) he's been walking from 25-35 k.

If he runs well he tells people what a stud he is, runs poorly he is " jogging the race for charity".

Letsrun BS at its finest.

zncxx wrote:

bangalangadanga wrote:

i've got a friend who has a pr of 3:03.

was jogging the race for charity (1:45 through 13.1) he's been walking from 25-35 k.

If he runs well he tells people what a stud he is, runs poorly he is " jogging the race for charity".

Letsrun BS at its finest.

come on. ive run 2:26 but also jumped in races a jogged just for the experience, like when i did big sur with my dad in 4:46

only guy i know who ran today went 3:35. actually negative split by about a minute but he has a 2:48 PR

A buddy of mine runs a 16:30 5K, which I feel is pretty good for guy who never ran competitively at any level. Today's time?

4:24.

He was walking at the 25K mark.

My consistently 2:50 buddy went 1:25 with a 3:19 finish. Ouch.

Rainy day wrote:

I will say the temperature hurt more than the wind helped last year.

Would you mind quantifying that, please?

I'm seeing most people ran 15-20 minutes slower than PR pace

I went out very conservatively, and still absolutely fell apart. Over an hour slower than my qualifying time. Unreal.

DirtyWork(1998) wrote:

A buddy of mine runs a 16:30 5K, which I feel is pretty good for guy who never ran competitively at any level. Today's time?

4:24.

He was walking at the 25K mark.

that's hard to believe unless he never trained for the marathon.

most of the folks I tracked with PRs 2:45 to 3:00, all finished around 30 minutes from their goal/PR/previous boston result.

Not a single one ran even splits. Kudos to anyone that pulled that off.

You don't see that many even splits in Boston even on a good day. The first half is almost all downhill whereas the second half has the uphill section + your quads are busted from the early pounding.

If today was anything like 2004 then 30-minute losses would be very typical. I recall a post-Boston survey on Runnersworld where the median was something like a 45 minutes slower than goal or PR.

i came in at 231 shape (71min in a hald 2 weeks ago). ran 259 today.

Man, some real tough stories here. I feel better for my friend now who was aiming for around ~2:42 and went 1:21/1:30.

I was tracking a lot of friends. Here's how some of them fared:

Male: 50 yrs. Original goal when training: 3:05. Today: 3:45 (This was only his 2nd marathon and he went out at a 3:04 pace even though he was warned.)

Male: 54 yrs. Goal: 3:15. Today: 3:35.

Male: 31. Goal: sub 3. Today: 3:35

Female: 37. Goal: sub 3:25. Today: 3:44

Female: 32. Goal: 3:25. Today: 4:48

(That last girl has a bad stomach and can't drink during a race, not even water. I have no idea how she survived today.)

I ran today only 7 minutes off my PR and slowed down by 1:40 in the second half. People ran stupid today. The entire second corral seemed to go by me in the first 5 miles and I was running under 6:20 pace for the first half, meaning that many runners were running faster than their pr pace for the first few miles of a hot weather marathon. But it was still tough out there. I tried to drink as much as possible at every stop and still felt thirsty and dehydrated towards the end.

My cousin is 54 and runs Boston every year. Last year he ran 2:50-something, this year well over 4 hours. Going in he said he just wanted the BQ, but still positive split by over 30 minutes.

boston resident wrote:

[quote]DirtyWork(1998) wrote:

A buddy of mine runs a 16:30 5K, which I feel is pretty good for guy who never ran competitively at any level. Today's time?

4:24.

He was walking at the 25K mark.

that's hard to believe unless he never trained for the marathon.

[quote]

Believe it! He was 6:50-ish pace through half the race and then crumbled. He did run 3:06 last year to qualify. I believe this was his third marathon.

The only guys that I knew who ran well today were those who had 10+ marathons under their belt. The rest were relative newbies who wanted to experience it for the first time - and boy, did they ever..