So this was the final go around to try to better my BQ time with the upcoming registration for the 2015 Boston Marathon. The weekend started off with a 2 hour travel on Saturday to Du Loache Winery in Santa Rosa, where the race expo and packet pick-u pwas hosted.
The packet pick-up was was a nice change than the normal environment of those found inside a expo or exhibition hall, where most marathons have their expos. This was outdoors with a few booths, plenty of wine and a quick and painless experience. After grabbing the goodies, I headed off to check into our hotel before heading to dinner at a local downtown place, Flip-It.

People often ask me what my pre marathon dinner typically consist of. My answer is, whatever I feel like having for dinner. This pre marathon evening one thing on the menu stuck out at me, the Crispy Portobello Veggie Burger!
After a yummy bite, it time to head back to the hotel and get a good nights rest. This evening sleep would have me experience something I had not experienced in a long time. Around 3:20am I was awaken by a violent shake. One so strong I thought my wife was shaking me to wake up as if there was something going on in the form of an emergency. I was completely wrong, this tremble was an earthquake. The last time I felt an earthquake was back in the late 80s. After jumping on Twitter to find out what was going on, apparently this shocker was felt by plenty and in fact was measured at a 6.1 magnitude causing some serious damage in nearby Napa. With all the commotion, I was still focused on trying to get some shut eye before the morning race.

With being able to catch a little more shut eye it was now time to head to the start area. The pre race time was pretty well timed, I walked to the park where the start and finish line were located, dropped my gear bag, said hello to Erin, headed to the Porto-A-Potty and finally found my way to the start line.
At the start line everything was smooth as could be, the normal hustling of runners to find their pace groups, and last minute well wishes amongst one another even if you didn’t know them. Shortly after 6:00AM we were on our way to conquer 26.2-miles around Santa Rosa.

The first 2.5 miles took us through downtown Santa Rosa before heading onto a river trail for a good portion of the race, with the out and back with a loop course, the back miles were visible as a constant reminder of this is a marathon not a sprint.

While enjoying the river trail that would hopefully lead to bettering my 2015 Boston Marathon qualifying time, I ran along side the 3:10 pace group. Though a 3:05 would be nice and a sub 3:00 would be even better, the reality of hitting those times would be tough not having gone through a full marathon training cycle, not to mention having ran The San Francisco Marathon just 4 weeks prior to Santa Rosa.

By the half marathon point I was around where I wanted to be which was 1:33:xx. At this point I was feeling pretty good, but running alone for the most part with a few exceptions of catching up to and getting passed by others.

From here I was cruising along, but started to feel a little tired. My splits and overall average pace start to drop a bit. As it started to drop, I wasn’t overly concerned with it too much because mile 20 was starting to near, and I knew I could try to give it a hard push for the final 10k.

During that final 10k, I only had the legs to push for the first 5k of them. After slushing my way through the final 5k and to the finish line, I was able to cross my 23rd marathon at a time of 3:16:24.

For those of you counting this is my 8th run that is at least 26.2 miles or longer in my quest for 14 (26.2+ mile runs) in (20)14.