26.2 miles later

Ran St. George yesterday - 3rd marathon, but first time doing St George.

Great news is I PR'd and finally broke four hours!

Here is the sad news. I signed up for this race with every intention to train better than the last two, to break 4 hours, and maybe even qualify for Boston (qualifying time is 3:40 for someone my age).

But training got hard, and my body felt off this last month, so I had been dreading the day and was just trying not to die on this race (that seriously was scotts goodbye when I left on Friday - a big hug and "...just don't die").

I was one of the last to cross the start line (I hate starting in a huge pack and getting caught behind so many people). So I knew my chip time would be faster than the clock time, but I didn't know how much faster. I don't run with a watch, and they didn't have a clock until mile 13.

I passed the pacer for 4:15 at mile 7. I passed the pacer for 4 hours at mile 14 and I finally caught up to the pacer for 3:50 at mile 25. So I knew I had broken 3:50. And when the ClockTime read 3:51:31 when I crossed the finish line, I figured I had run about a 3:45 marathon. And I was really happy about that.

And then I got my official time ...

ChipTime 3:41:32

To qualify for Boston you need a time of 3:40:59. I missed it by 33 seconds.

I may ask santa for a GPS watch for Christmas.