I had three levels of goals for today’s Twin Cities Marathon: 1) set a new PR, 2) break 4 hours and 3) set a new TCM PR. My chip time of 3:46:58 (8:40 pace) met all three goals, but I have to say, it feels like a disappointment. The official online results can be found here.

As you can see from the detailed breakdown, I was running at a 3:30 pace when I hit the halfway point, but I regressed big time for the final 13.1. That’s not unusual for me, but this time it didn’t seem like I was slowing down that much. Here are the splits:

• First half – 8:03, 7:53, 8:18, 7:57, 8:01, 8:04, 7:48, 8:01, 7:58, 7:59, 8:00, 8:14, 8:19
• Second half – 8:46, 7:57, 8:40, 8:52, 9:01, 9:08, 9:16, 9:18, 10:13, 10:04, 9:46, 10:11, 9:21

Those ten minute miles in the last 10K were especially disconcerting, as I didn’t take any bathroom breaks or really have anything else to deal with. It did get hot and sunny towards the end, but it wasn’t Disney World hot by any stretch.

I’m not really sure where to go from here – I’m not currently registered for anything right now and we are about to start the cold off season in Minnesota soon. With Boston-qualifying times bumping down another five minutes next year, trying to shave an additional 30 minutes off my PR seems impossible (without training full-time).

My friend Megan is running a few races the next few months and I’d love to join her if I had more money (this one is $80 and this one is $350). There is also a chance I get selected for the 2012 New York lottery too, so I guess we’ll see…

2011 TC Marathon Searchable Results
2011 TC 10 Mile Searchable Results