I run about 40 miles per week since I moved back to SF. Every Thursday I run with ARM SF, a local running store in Presidio Heights. They have Thursday 7pm and Sunday 9am group runs. I also started hitting trails and hills more, but I’m still really bad at hills.

I signed up for Grandma’s shortly after moving back to the states, my parents live in the Twin Cities and my aunt lives in Duluth/Superior, so logistically it’s super simple to run this race. It’s also one of the best races to BQ. I had June 21st on my calendar, but didn’t really put together a day-by-day training schedule like I did with my marathons last year. I knew my base was decent, and I just needed more speeds. I loosely followed the “Coach” training schedule in the Nike+ iOS app last 5 weeks before the race.

My dream goal was to go sub 3, but the fastest pace group they had was 3:05. I figured sub-3:05 (BQ+5) should be enough room to get into Boston, so I ran with the 3:05 pacer. I pretty much ran in front of the group until around the 20-mile mark, I started to fade when I hit Lemon Drop Hill, at which point the pacer passed me and I chased him til the finish line. It was fun to hear the foot steps of the entire pace group behind me almost the entire race. I finished with a chip time of 3:04:49, which qualified me for Boston.

Detailed results

Splits