(Editor’s note: Team Little Guy member Austin Braithwait, aka “connedbybrehmer”, successfully completed the Boston Marathon on Monday in 3 hours, 53 minutes & 50 seconds. Austin reflects on running in and completing the marathon. Congrats, Austin!)

I finally actually got myself in decent shape … novel concept! In hind sight I could have opened it up a bit sooner, although my legs really never felt good all day, I just kind of got in a rhythm and tried to feed off the crowd…..low 60′s and sunny; they were in rare form, absolutely tremendous!!!! They really make you feel like you are the star of the show (so long as you right your name on your singlet). I had my name as well as my patient partner Timmy’s name emblazoned across the front, so it generated a ton of support.

You might have noticed that I got a little worried just before heartbreak, I slowed down just a bit because I got a knot in my left quad that I was really worried about it cramping … it never really went away, but the climbs from 17.5 to almost 21 helped give me the confidence it wasn’t going to get worse. I passed a ton of people going up the 3 mile heartbreak section and I can’t tell you how energizing that was … when I got to the top I felt pretty good and literally said out loud while giving myself my best Lance Armstrong to Jan Ulrich internal stare (if that is possible), “all right, let’s see what you’ve got!” I flat out opened it up down the back of heartbreak and at one point looked down at my GPS to a 6:22/mile pace (the back side has a pretty good grade, so I was just letting gravity take over and I just cooperated). I got to the bottom and thought everything seems to be in good working order, “I got this!” From that point on I was passing people at a good clip and my legs finally started to feel stronger as I passed each mile mark. At that point, I really started thinking about achieving a negative split but ran out of time … missed it by 30 lousy seconds.

Based on what I had left and it not being ideal conditions with the heat and sun, I think there is more time I can shave.

Thanks again for your thoughts during the day. It helps provide a little extra incentive knowing there are people out there watching your progress!

This entry was posted on April 22, 2008 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Boston Marathon, Credit Unions, Marathon, Running, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.