QUALIFIED!!!

Div Place:86 Overall:466 Pace:7m15s Time:3h10m12s Half Marathon:1h29m55s
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/1503990

Let me first thank my son and his mom Christina whom without today would have been much more difficult.

That being said I DID IT and having done it I have decided to do what comes next. I am going t Boston. I earned it so I am going. I will work out the details lie how to pay for it later.

The race this morning went well. We had driven the course yesterday so I was familiar with the course and the turns. I crossed the staring line about 6 seconds after the start of the race. Knowing my body and my previous experience with runs over 16 miles I decided to take the advice of my former boss Jason Jones (a fellow runner) and try to get to the 20 mile mark in a decent time that would allow me to coast in the remaining 6. That strategy was risky since my running style is to start off slower and build speed during the course of the race (works great for middle distance events). However knowing my body and knowing that I tend to slow down after 16 or so miles. I decided it best to push myself early and coast in. Well it worked. I finished in 3 hours 10 minutes. I needed 3 hours 15 minutes to qualify and so I did it with 5 minutes to spare.
It was super cold on the morning so I was bundled up and that start of the race. I had Nico and Christina meet me at mile 2 so I could hand off my jacket and gloves. By then I was good and warm. At the half marathon mark I was at 1:29 (another PR) and I was feeling pretty good. I stayed with the 3 hour pace group till mile 16 or so at which my right hip started to bother me a little. By mile 20 both my quads were on fire but I kept seeing "Boston or Bust" signs so I decided to tough it out. At the 25th mile mark the 3:10 pace group caught me and so I had enough energy left to pace him the rest of the way in. At the finish line Nico and Christina were there to cheer me on which meant a lot to me. My fellow blogger/runner Amanda was there as well.

It was still freezing when I got to the finish line so we did not stick around long. We found 'cafe bernardo' and decided it was a sign so we had breakfast there. They even had my favorite breakfast.



Time to recover. The rest of the day I hung out at my aunt Teresa's house (special thanks to her as well for letting us crash at her house). We also stopped by my grandpa's house to wish him an early 'happy birthday.' We also watched the 49ers beat the Jets at the ranch as well.

When we finally got home we celebrated by opening up my very best bottle of wine that I had picked up at Loma Prieta Winery a month ago. This wine was a gold medal wine that was voted the best red wine in California. It was great.

Well I am tired for obvious reason. I will recover this week. The rest of the month I will do some light running and a lot of cross training (I am hoping Santa Clause will bring me a mountain bike) and I will start training for the Boston in January.