I ran the Boston Marathon on Monday. Here's how it went:

I rode the bus out to Hopkinton with my Dad and then sat around with the other 27,000 people and then weaved my way down to the first starting corral. I got there at the perfect time, getting in toward the front, about 50 feet behind the elites. They ran right past us on their way to the line, so I got to high-five Meb and Ryan Hall. The first couple miles I weaved my way up with the american sub? elites where I belonged. It was funny since I had run such a slow qualifier I wasn't in the elite start, so I was running along with bib numbers around 30 and 50 with my number 1412, people were cheering for me. Boston fans are awesome. So anyway, I was rolling along, hitting sub 5:20s for most of the first half of the race, coming through the half marathon in 1:09:10 (on my watch) and was feeling great. I kept it up until around 18 miles when things started getting really tough. My calf had started hurting around the 5 mile point, but then around 15, my hips. groin, and IT bands started tightening down really hard. The most frustrating part was that I still felt great, but my legs wouldn't let me run that fast. I shuffled up the hills and just survived after that, stumbling down Boylston street alone to finish 96th in 2:32:34. I know I'm very much capable of 2:20, but I don't know how to keep my leg parts from shutting down before my engine does.