Six Seconds

That's how much I missed the Boston qualifying time by!  I guess it's easier to swallow than missing the QT by 1 second.  The biggest thing that caught me (and everyone else) by surprise was the strong headwind.  Even though we were going downhill, the wind was so strong between miles 13 and 24 that it felt like we were running uphill the whole time.  I kept ducking and running behind tall men so that I could draft off of them.  It helped, but I could only do it for so long before they got annoyed at me and my beeping Garmin.  Thanks to the steep downhills in the beginning, my quads were so beaten up that the cramps in my quads and calves started at mile 19 and never relented.  The cramps slowed me down significantly.  Interestingly, I never 'hit the wall' at mile 20.  It was all leg cramping.  I was running ahead of the 3:40 pacer up until mile 19, and when I reached mile 24.5, I got passed by the 3:45 pacer.  At the time, I thought I was still OK because the Boston QT allows an additional 59 seconds to qualify (i.e., I could run 3:45:59 and still qualify).  Apparently, it wasn't good enough.  Long story short, I didn't make it.  At this point, I'm considering the Phoenix Rock n Roll Marathon on 1/17/2010, and hoping I can redeem myself.  However, I am not entirely disappointed as I have finally run a sub-4 marathon, which was what I had wanted to achieve back in 2004 (missed it by a whopping 10 minutes).  Since then I've been able to shave off 24 mins, so I know I can do it as long as all the stars are aligned : )  So, it's back to another 5 weeks of training, and J had suggested that I do more intense weight training with my quads and calves (he poo-poo'd my current weight training classes, said they were more calisthenics than real weights).