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The bus ride was longer than I had expected, and our driver seemed to be in a race of his own as he kept pulling out of the caravan of school buses to pass those that were in front of us. We arrived at the Athlete’s Village with a few hours to spare, and I managed to find my dailymile/Twitter friends hanging out near the backstop of the baseball field. We had some time to kill, and it was great to spend it with such a great group of people (that’s me in the orange jacket in the photo above). It was cold and windy in the village, and runners all over were wrapped in mylar blankets and trash bags in an effort to stay warm.As race time approached, I made a Nike Air Max 270 Dam Svart decision to wear arm warmers and gloves to the starting line. In retrospect, this may have Nike Air Max 270 Dames been one of the first mistakes of Nike Free Run 2.0 Femme many that I made on the day. I walked to the start with my friends Andy and Steve, and we met up with a few other friends while waiting in a porta-potty line (naturally!).Waiting in the corral (#7 for me) was yet another memorable experience. Standing there, knowing that I had earned the right to be there at that moment through years of hard work, was one of the most satisfying things I have ever felt. There’s nothing quite like waiting for the start of the Boston Marathon – every runner should experience it at least once. It was also cool to be grouped with everyone who had qualified with a similar time to mine, but this also created a challenge. I knew going into the race that a 3:15 was not in the cards – I’d lost too much fitness over the winter due to a combination of lousy weather and an Nike Air Force 1 Donne excessively busy life. I’d also put on Nike Roshe Run Damen a good 5-6 pounds since my BQ race. My realistic goal was a 3:30, give or take 10 minutes depending on how I felt. However, when the starting gun went off I found myself sucked into running at the same pace as everyone in my corral – this despite the fact that nearly everyone I had talked to about race strategy warned me not be tricked into going out too fast by the initial downhill grade.I knew from very early on in the race that it wasn’t going to be my day. Even in the initial few downhill miles I could sense that my quads were not fresh, and I was fairly certain that they were going to give me serious trouble at some point (which they most certainly did). My suspicion is that they weren’t yet back to 100% Nike Air Max 270 Donne after the beating they took at the HAT 50K with its insanely hilly course – one Nike Air Max 720 Womens thing I have learned over the years is that Adidas Superstar Dámské it takes my body at least four full weeks to recover from a marathon, and the HAT Run sapped my quads far worse than any marathon ever has. I have no regrets about running HAT though – like Boston, it was an unforgettable experience.The one thought that kept going through my mind over those early miles was “slow down!” I knew I was running too fast – in fact, my early pace was faster than I ran in my BQ marathon back in October. I think the fact that everyone around me was running the same pace made it hard for me to ease off, even if I knew it was the smart thing to do. Running those early miles the way I did was pure stupidity, and I paid badly for the mistake.It also wasn’t long before I started to get hot. Unlike the cold and wind that made sitting in the Athlete’s Village uncomfortable, once we were running the wind was less Nike Air Max Tn Donne noticeable and the sun was bright – I actually wound up with a bit of a sunburn on my shoulders. Having done all of my training in much colder temperatures, it actually felt downright hot to me, and began to regret the decision to wear my arm warmers. However, for some mystifying reason I never took them off – strange how you don’t always do what’s logical when running a race. The combination of pace and heat led me to drink water at most of the water stops, and this set the stage for events that would unfold later.The crowd along the race route was just as everyone had described – large, loud and incredibly supportive. Every time we entered a town the noise level rose considerably, and this didn’t help me in my futile attempt to slow down my pace. Around mile 10 I passed Team Hoyt, and the noise from the spectators cheering them Nike Air Force 1 Womens on was deafening – this was one of the most vivid memories I have from the entire race. I hit the half marathon mark on pace to run between a 3:15-3:20, which I knew was way too fast.