Quick report from the phone while eating post race lunch. So not the 2:40 I was hoping for but I feel good about the result. Second fastest marathon ever and best in 4 years. Made it up the Newton hills well but lost the legs after that and it was a battle to keep moving. Splits and more later. 1 - 6:21 2 - 6:12 3 - 6:05 4 - 6:04 5 - 6:11 6 - 6:11 7 - 6:14 8 - 6:16 9 - 6:14 10 - 6:11 11 - 6:16 12 - 6:10 13 - 6:16 14 - 6:12 15 - 6:14 16 - 5:58 17 - 6:17 18 - 6:22 19 - 6:06 20 - 6:11 21 - 6:46 22 - 6:13 23 - 6:25 24 - 6:34 25 - 6:36 26 - 6:45 .2 - 6:03 I was trying to follow everyone's advice to take it easy the first few and got a little carried away the first mile. At one point I looked down and was going 6:43. A little too slow there. Sped back up and tried to not check the watch much. I tried to keep a racing mentality more than I have in the past and that helped but I wanted to let the body decide the pace so as to not burn out early. Looks like what the body wanted was around 6:15. Slower than I had my mind set on but that's the shape I'm in. Not sure where miles 16,19 came from and it would have been fun to have kept that till the end. The last 6 were brutal and I desperately wanted to stop but I had to keep going. Thinking of all the people who helped make this trip possible kept me moving (along with the crowds. Wow!) and I was able to speed up just a touch to finish it off. Sadly I wasn't prepared for the wellsley portion of the course and missed my chance to kiss random strangers on the side of the road because i was on the wrong side of the road (and by the thought of getting some funky disease or having Emily remove vital body parts). Great day for running, got a decent time and am having lots of fun seeing all the history of Boston. Great trip! | 