Well, congrats on a studly sub 3 race and taking 30 min off your previous marathon time. Anytime someone goes sub 3 it is a success in my books. Its the overall time that counts. All the in between times are largely meaningless.

As the others said, the slow down can is due to lack of preparation for the race. But going to my point, if you are going to run a marathon by "tacking it on" after the tri season and be suboptimally prepared, there is nothing wrong with this strategy. You may as well "make hay while the sun shines" :-)

Dev

18mths after your first marathon, you took 30+ minutes out of your time and qualified for Boston. You did great!

In your specific preparation period for the next one, use a measured course (I like a 3 or 5 mile loop) to learn more about pace management and what might be possible for the race. Read Joe Friel's article on Three-Part Pacing -- www.ultrafit.com -- that will give you some ideas. I also like the Daniels Running Formula book -- good general stuff on training in there.

g

that's not a blowup.. walking is a blowup. Congratulations on your sub-3, that's a significant achievement.

50mpw is kinda low frankly. Another year or two of endurance training, for the next marathon do an 8-12 week running buildup, try to get in a couple of 60-80 mile weeks, control your enthusiasm in the early miles, and you can improve quite a bit IMO.

I "raced" (I actually only entered to pace my brother so he could break 3)a marathon on Sunday as well. My summary is a few pages back under the subject of "testing Dev's theory". I did a pretty small positive split but would have negative split without a hamstring injury flare up. I've only been running around 35-40 miles per week though so my conservative running early helped. It definitely felt the easiest of any long event that I've ever done except for my aching hamstring and limping in the final 3.5 miles.

First off, good job, thats not too bad of a positive split. If you decide to do another marathon, I'd suggest a few more 2+ hour runs. Also, in the middle or at the end of your long runs try adding 6-8 miles at PMP(Proposed Marathon Pace). This will get you used to running at your race pace so you wont crash and burn at the end. Finally, knowing the pace youre going to run and then negative splitting slightly is key. If you have properly trained and tapered, the first 10 miles of your marathon should feel really easy. This will leave you feeling good and accelerating at the end rather than blowing up. Even 5-10 sec/mile can make a huge difference and prevent a blow up.

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Team Timex 2014
@ajhodges

Thanks for the encouraging replys everyone. I realize I was a bit underprepared for the marathon, seeing as how I "tacked it on" to the end of the season. With the level of fitness that I had to work with yesterday, I don't know how conservative I could have been on the first half and still gone under 3. Could I have gone 1.30, 1.28. Knowing how I felt near the end, I doubt it. Would 1.28, 1.28 have been possible? I don't know. I'm signed up for MOO next year so I don't really have the money to do Boston too. I do think that with some more focused marathong training I can get down in the 2.40s. I guess I'll have to save that attempt for another day.

Dan