Yep, I did it. I finished my second Boston marathon in 4:48:20 hrs today. Since I have only trained for the marathon a month before with more more than 7 miles long runs, the best thing for me to do was to take everything in moderation. In other words, establish a moderate pace of 11 minutes per mile, have a good attitude, and most of all have fun doing it. For these reasons, I really enjoyed today's run. I maintained my pace at exactly 11 minutes per mile - forcing myself not to go too fast at the beginning and too slow at the end. I was proud by the fact that I didn't walk during today's run. I did, however, stop a lot to to drink and to take pictures, which I have taken a lot of. I will post them later.
Because I was a bandit runner, I was placed at the end of the line and didn't start till 45 minutes after the first athletes had started running. I caught up to my friend, Denise at around mile 4 and we ran together till mile 16 where we met Denise's friend, Natasha. Feeling really confident and strong, I decided to depart ways with Denise to run the rest of the race by myself. Unlike my last Boston Marathon I overcame the Newton Hills - a series of 4 hills between mile 17.5 and mile 21 - without stopping. Better yet, I picked up my pace and past a few dozen runners during the ascent. However, the last 4 miles of the race was a bit of a struggle for me as I have exhausted every once of energy in my body.
Having ran the course before helped with my planning of the marathon run as I know what to expect. I find that the first 13 miles is relatively easy while the last 13 miles is a lot more difficult, especially the Newton Hills, including Heartbreak Hill, as being the most grueling part of the race. The moral of the story is to moderate yourself, make sure you run at a pace that are comfortable. Every time I tried to be a hero and run faster than my training pace on race day, especially at the beginning of the race, gets me into trouble later in the race. The surest way to improve one's running pace is to train hard, which is something that I lack. Anyway, this is my 2 cents. All in all, this is a really fun race and I am really glad that I did it. I would like to thank Eimear for giving a ride to the starting line and subsequently cheering me on at the finishing line. Big thanks also go out to Denise whose company has been valuable during the marathon. Last but not least, I would like to thank the numerous people who supported me for the run.
| 4/18/2006 12:00:33 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) |
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