The Half

Brendan and I rolled through the 10K, 15K, and 20K marks like two well-oiled sumo wrestlers going down a water slide (hard to believe that there's no image for this description on the Internets).

(4 down...)

Like I said previously, everything for much of this race was going to be a blur to me, and this section was no different. I only recalled a couple of memorable items of note through this stretch.



One clear memory was seeing Team Hoyt at mile 8.9 going as strong as ever. Simply amazing and inspiring.

On the comical side, Brendan and I witnessed a spectator offer up a beer to a  runner (from Ireland no less), and that runner taking the offer and running off with the beer with the drunken spectator in tow for a good 20 yards! I think we were finally able to relax now.

The other memorial part of this run were the cheers for Greater Lowell and the lack thereof for my running partner's club, Somerville. Well, to be fair a couple of fat chicks did scream Somerville, and we eventually agreed that those girls would count as two on our virtual scorecard. Then again, to be even more fair we counted old chicks as deductions. So, in the end it was GLRR 89, SRR -32.

I think Brendan finally had had enough of my new found fame by Mile 11 and decided to run his own race. He told me to go for it before dropping back into the pack. 

One final note on Brendan's assistance during this stretch. We were hitting very low 6's around the Framingham T station, and it was Brendan who, thankfully, reeled me back in. I clearly remember him telling me that it was too early to be hammering it. I'm sure I would have pushed it even harder, and paid for it later on, if not for his warning. Thanks again, buddy!

Once Brendan dropped back, I took that as my cue to really see what I could do. At this point I felt like I was in good shape for 2:47ish, and was only about 3 seconds per mile off of that pace. I also wanted to build that buffer by the 13.1 mile mark.

To my amazement and in a way my displeasure, I hit the half-way mark in 1:24:10. This was exactly (I mean to the millisecond) of what I needed to run according to the Boston spreadsheet. Displeasure because I pretty much had banked NO extra time whatsoever. This meant that the second half was going to be 1:25:49 or bust!

There was definitely no room for error or Mile 14's now.

And then I felt a tweak in my right hamstring.