Patriot’s Day this year started out perfect. I slept unusually well the night before. The weather was great, a “no excuses kind of day” as the coach of our club put it on the bus ride out to Hopkinton.

From the start I knew that my goals for the day were ambitious. I was going for a 2:24/2:25 goal time, which represented a 3/4 minute PR from my 2009 Chicago Marathon PR of 2:28:44. I was also very aware that 2:28 effort on the flat Chicago streets does not map to a 2:28 effort on the undulating route from Hopkinton, so I was actually going for a PR that was bigger than simply 3/4 minutes. The open question was how much bigger?

For the first time this year, I corralled right up front, right behind the “human chain” separating the 1000s runners from the elites. And the gun.  After my 5:19 first mile down the big hill in Hopkinton, I quickly settled into my goal pace of roughly 5:30/mile for the first half of the race.

I tried to fall in with some groups of club runners. For several miles I was in a loosely organized group with Jim Johnson from Central Mass Striders, and I believe a couple BAA runners (I’m confused by their new gold uniforms). At the 7th mile split I saw a 5:36 on my Garmin. Now it was decision time, there was a noticeable cross wind that was more of a headwind at this point. But, I wanted to stay on goal pace. I elected to try to brave a bit of wind and try to catch up with another group of 4/5 runners up ahead that included David Bedoya from Greater Boston Track Club.

This turned out to be a significant effort. It was windier than I realized and I could feel that I had exerted myself a little too much by the time I caught up with the next group. I ran with this new group for a mile or so, looked down at my Garmin. 5:22. Now this was too fast. I decided to let them go.

By this point we were nearing mile 10 in Natick, where I knew several of my co-workers would be out to say hello. It also started to occur to me at this point that I was much more tired than I had ever been at mile 10 of a marathon.

We came through the Wellesley scream tunnel and amongst the high pitched screams, it set in that the current pace was getting unmanageably difficult. I was, however, still hitting my splits.

I crossed the half marathon at 1:12:17, almost exactly as I had planned. I had not planned on feeling this bad. At this point I realized that I had to change my race plan or risk a blow up over the Newton hills. I dropped about 15/20 seconds off of the next two mile splits (my worst split of the day was around Wellesley Farms, 5:54. I had no idea I had slowed down this much)

From the first major hill over route 128, there was no more strategy. I was just trying not to blow up. I carried about a 5:45 average pace over the Newton Hills. A bunch of people from Somerville Road Runners were stationed at the 30k mark to hand out beverages/food. They were all awesome and were super supportive.  Unfortunately I was just trying to keep it together so I couldn’t show proper appreciation in the moment. This was how I looked as I passed by (Note the veins sticking out of my forehead).

I was hurting bad over Heartbreak Hill. This was my second to worst split of the day, a 5:53.

The section of the race from Cleveland Circle to Kenmore Square is mostly a blur. One thing I remember was shortly after Coolidge Corner, a woman from the crowd handed me a bottle of water. I’ve never taken stuff from the crowd before but I was so thirsty. I stood in place and drank half of the water bottle. I bet I only stood there for a few seconds, but I have no idea. I’m guessing I’m one of the few up where I was that stopped in place to drink because the crowd got very loud. “Somerville, come on, let’s go!” About 200 yards later I came to a Gatorade stop. I walked through the Gatorade stop and drank the whole cup of Gatorade. I never normally walk or stop during races, but I was really really thirsty.

A few hundred yards later someone yelled out at me, “you’re in 55th place”. This provided the final encouragement I needed to finish strong. I was now coming up on Kenmore Square where my good friend Alexander told me to look for him and his yellow sign. Standing next to him and the yellow sign was my girlfriend, who was supposed to be at school in Berkeley, CA but came out to surprise me. That was awesome, I had an appropriately big smile for the first time since very early in the race.

I finished my last mile in 5:30, I also passed a few people and finished 49th overall. My last half marathon split was a 1:15:09, 3 minutes off of my first half. When I looked up at the clock, I was surprised by how happy I was. Sure, I wasn’t able to execute my original race plan. But, I PRed, and I didn’t blow up.

Monday’s 1 minute PR was a learning experience. I learned what it feels like to go out too hard in a marathon and what is required to try to salvage the race once you do that. I also gained a healthier respect for the Boston course and what is required to race it fast. I will certainly adjust my race plan the next time I run Boston.

And, lest I sound overly down on what is by far my best performance as far as place in a big race, I’ll state that yes, it does feel good to be in the top 50 at Boston.