Bridges and dreams

With a real feel temperature of -8 degrees, Elin and I set off to run the TCS New York City Marathon in under 3 hours and 30 minutes. As many times before, I was slightly ahead for the first half of the race and about 18 km into the race we had a projected finishing time of 3 hours and 15 minutes. Then, slowly, Elin began pacing ahead whereas I had a harder and harder time keeping up. At the 32 km mark, I was still within the 3:30 window but soon after I realized that this was not going to be my day as I started to fall further behind. In the end, Elin finished with an incredible time of 3 hours and 29 minutes whereas I needed another six minutes to cross the finishing line.

Though obviously disappointing, this still amounts to an improvement of ten minutes over my time in Stockholm last year. Considering that I did this with basically no tapering and in my VJ Sarva Xante shoes with carbide steel studs (rather than my Rincons as originally planned), I think there is room for improvement. Having said that, I do not think I could have run a sub 3:30 marathon today regardless of the circumstances as I am simply not there fitness-wise (yet).