Jeff Banks

Boston Marathon

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Member Since:

Oct 17, 2007

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

4.70 m pole vault

2:41:54 marathon

2:41:15 marathon (aided) 

1:16 half 

Short-Term Running Goals:

< 1:15 half

< 2:40 full

Long-Term Running Goals:

Give an honest effort to find my fastest marathon and half.

Personal:

Married, one kid, one cat

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Race: Boston Marathon (26.2 Miles) 02:41:54, Place overall: 250, Place in age division: 202
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
2.0026.200.000.0028.20

OK this was a mixed bag. On the one hand I ran a ~4 minute PR but my race was horrible. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what happened, so I will write more after work, but here are the splits:

 1) 6:13

 2) 5:51

3) 5:50

4) 5:46

5) 6:05

6) 5:52

7) 5:57

8) ??? mile marker in the middle of a water stop???

9) 11:54

10) 5:57

11) 5:59

12) 5:55

13) 5:57

14) 5:59

15) 6:11

16) 5:58

17) 6:25

18) 6:28

19) 6:14

20) 6:29

21) 6:48

22) 6:13

23) 6:27

24) 6:21

25) 6:43

26.2) 8:12

 

As you can see it looks like I bonked, but I really wasn't that tired. I knew I was running slow after 17 but just didn't speed up. A few items I think might be contributing: 1) I was sick all last week and didn't really get better by race day. 2) I need to eat a bigger breakfast. 3) I need to train on more hills. 4) I need to not mentally check out after setting myself up for a great race! Live and learn I guess.

 

So, after thinking about it some more I think some of my trouble was that I let my blood sugar get too low. I didn't eat enough breakfast and what I did eat was too early. Then I probably should have tried to keep the sugar coming in drinking a little more gatorade at the early water stops. I just don't remember feeling like I was hurting that much during the race and then today I don't really feel all that sore ... it doesn't seem that I ran up against my fitness level. Rather, I executed the race day prep really poorly. Any ideas from the more experienced folks out there? 

 

Oh one more fact. I nearly threw up at mile 12, again at mile 18, and again at 22 or so. I don't know how that fits in with everything else but maybe someone does? 

Comments
From jtshad on Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 11:54:20 from 204.134.132.225

Congrats on the PR and a great time. Sorry it wasn't quite what you were looking for but you did great. It doesn't look like you "bonked", just ran out of fuel and hit the pace that was more of an easy to maintain but nothing left in the tank. Those miles after Heartbreak are not as easy as they look on paper!

From Rob Murphy on Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 12:25:50 from 205.127.70.66

Jeff, I'm not sure how many Boston's you have done, but you should be proud of that effort. Great work. With a little more time and a little luck, you'll be in the 2:30s.

From fiddy on Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 18:19:35 from 155.99.198.111

That looks very similiar to my first Boston two years ago. I think it very hard to run Boston "properly".

From Kelli on Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 08:07:55 from 184.49.175.124

Awesome job on the PR, I hope you can figure out what happened so that you can do even better. It is bothersome when you can not figure out exactly what went wrong. HOWEVER, how nice to get a PR even when the race did not go perfectly!

From Paul on Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 12:30:00 from 65.103.252.214

A PR at Boston is awesome. Great job. You'll work out the little details of marathoning eventually, but it takes time.

From josse on Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 12:41:53 from 75.252.5.74

Great job with the PR at Boston!

From runningafterbabies on Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 14:21:46 from 67.177.9.74

Nice run. Sorry you didn't meet your expectations, but a PR is always nice. It sounds to me like a lot of factors contributed to the bonk. I would say more gatorade early would help. I bonked at a marathon last yr and this yr I added an extra gu and more gatorade early on - it seemed to work.

From rockness18 on Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 23:32:07 from 75.16.161.162

Nice job!

From Rhett on Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 14:02:33 from 74.32.222.202

Great race. Boston is a tough course and with a 4 minute PR, you should be proud. Way to go.

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