Boston vs New York

At the New York Marathon last weekend, I hoped to beat my PR from Boston in April, partly because of my training, but partly because I had decided that NYC was an easier course than Boston. It didn't go that way. I went out a bit faster, but hurt more on the last 10k, and ended up 30 seconds slower. I walked away thinking, no, New York is the harder course. It wasn't a PR, but is was an NYC PR, so good for me!

Hmm, it's starting to sound like every time I run a marathon I decide that it was the hardest course ever. Time to get some hard evidence to support my self serving conclusion. Sure, I had lots of ideas. Boston is famous for it's hills, but NYCM has some hills too. NYCM has more turns, and NYCM is more crowded -- a lot more crowded. Turns and crowds definitely through me off my stride, and in theory could account for increased fatigue. Still there must be a more scientific way to compare.

Comparing average times doesn't work, since Boston is mostly runners that qualified by time. So how about course records? Boston has the faster records both for men and women, by about 2 minutes. That might not work either though, since these marathons pay top runners to show up. If one spends more money than the other, they could skew the results. Except for Margaret Okayo. 

Margaret Okayo of Kenya holds the course record in BOTH New York and Boston. She won New York in 2001 in 2:24:21, then won Boston in 2002 in 2:20:43, and then repeated in New York with a course record 2:22:31.

So there you have it. New York is the tougher course. Pure science has spoken. 

Digging deep at the end of the NYCM

NYC Marathon Race Report - the numbers

For some reason, it always takes me a while to post about a marathon. Part of it is just that the energy available for extracurricular activities is low. Energy aside though, it's not as easy for me to write up a marathon as it is a 10k or other shorter race.

I think the main obstacle is that there is so much that happens on marathon day, that it's hard to boil it down to a post that captures the essence of the day. Other bloggers have attacked this problem by posting shorter, targeted entries, so I'll give that a try. Here is the short, cold, hard race report:

My goal was to beat my PR of 3:20:06, which I set at Boston in April. I felt in shape to do it, at least by a little, but NYC is a different course. I decided to go with the theory that NYC is an easier course.

My average pace in Boston was 7:38, so I was looking to start at 7:25-7:30. This seemed like it wouldn't be going out too fast, but give me some room to fade at the end.

I stuck to the plan pretty darn well, but by the time I hit mile 20, I was really feeling it. I had to dig really deep for the entire last 10k. My pace slipped quite a bit, but I kept it together and never completely crashed. In the end, I finished 31 seconds slower that in Boston -- 3:20:37. It's unfortunate that I couldn't keep pace enough for a PR, but I'm proud of myself for hanging in for a solid time.

My Garmin was not much use (a story for another post), so the best numbers I have are the splits published by the NYRR. They clocked me at every 5K, and I did the math to get an average pace for each split. A marathon is 42.1 kilometers, so the last entry is for 2.1k.

Interval	Pace
0-5k	7:29
10k-15k	7:19
15k-20k	7:25
20k-25k	7:23
25k-30k	7:31
30k-35k	7:58
35k-40k	8:08
last 2.1k	8:23