Another marathon in the bag; my second Boston Marathon in as many years with a New York City one mixed in last November.  What a day last Monday too.  Perfect running temps were very welcomed by all running (especially me), but a very challenging head wind made a 26.2 mile run that much more difficult.  But that's the benefit of living in Boston and doing a lot of running on the water; I was pretty used to running into the wind.  To add to the head wind, I also developed a very nice sized blister on the outside ball of my left foot, but that wasn't going to deter me from finishing the 113th Boston Marathon. 

With all of the difficulties, I was sitll able to improve my time from last year by 10 minutes, and I finished this years in 4:42:10!!  I felt pretty good throughout the majority of the whole run, and the crowds were really awesome despite the the relatively cool temps.  Considering my challenges, I know that I can continue to improve my times, and maybe sometime in the future I can break 4 hours. 

I was greeted in the VIP tent by several of my running buddies from John Hancock, and we were all able to enjoy the exhilerating feeling of completing something that less than 1% of people can accomplish.  There were some pretty impressive times, especially from some first time marathoners with times of 4:06, 4:11, 4:22, 4:32 and 4:40.  Next year I'll be in that group of times, and maybe even better.

Thank you so much to everyone that's been able to donate to my charity.  The comments were all great, and definitely helped me make it through all of the training, and especailly the marathon.  As great as it is to have so much support, I'm still a little short of my goal, so if you haven't had a chance to donate, there's still time to toss me a few bucks.  So if you can find a way to make a quick donation, I would greatly appreciate it, and until next year (with hopefully a better economy), I'll be back to tackle the 114th edition of the Boston Marathon.

Bryan