Lance Armstrong Finishes Boston Marathon with a Time of 2:50:58

Lance wasn't able to match his PR from the New York Marathon in November, but he still had a very respectable Boston Marathon time of 2:50:58. According to this Runner's World article the hills took their toll. Lance also admitted he didn't put in the training he had hoped. Below are the splits from his 3 marathons:

      Boston 08       NY 07       NY 06
5k      0:20:11     0:20:01     0:20:58
10k     0:41:09     0:40:08     0:41:57
15k     1:01:53     0:59:54     1:03:23
20k     1:22:42     1:19:27     1:24:27
half    1:26:52     1:23:41     1:28:58
25k     1:42:14           ?     1:45:56
30k     2:02:05     1:58:40     2:06:27
35k     2:22:06     2:18:00     2:27:37
40k     2:42:01     2:37:47     2:49:57
finish  2:50:58     2:46:43     2:59:36

One thing interesting to note is how fast Lance ran the second half of Boston. Here is how the races compared:

Boston 2008:   2:46 faster on 2nd half
New York 2007: 0:39 faster on 2nd half
New York 2006: 1:40 slower on 2nd half

I also looked at how other male runners did today at Boston. I looked at about 50 men who finished before and after Lance. Only one ran the second half faster. Cameron Hanes was 10 seconds ahead of Lance at the half-way point and finished the marathon 13 seconds before Lance. So he just barely had a faster second-half.

So it looks like Lance could have pushed it harder. Perhaps he kept it slow on the downhills. He did admit in the Runner's World interview that it's hard for him to run on the downhills. Also, perhaps he did better than others on Heartbreak Hill and the other hills on the second half. Those Boston hills are small compared to the mountain climbs he did in the Tour de France.

With 3 kids and the time he puts into his cancer foundation, I can understand him not wanting to get too serious in his training. After his sixth Tour de France win, I was wondering why he wanted to go for number seven. Number six set the record for the most wins, so why do another year of extreme sacrifice? It looks like he wants to have more balance now, and I can't blame him.

Lance Armstrong's 34:56 10K and What to Expect at Tomorrow's Boston Marathon

An injury may make it tough for Lance tomorrow at the Boston Marathon. According to this Boston Globe interview, Lance cut his foot while training in Hawaii. We'll see how much impact this will have. His last race appears to have been the Scotland 10K in New York City on March 30th. In a Runner's World interview, Lance mentioned he was tentatively planning to run a half-marathon at the Austin Marathon, but it looks like he decided to do this 10K instead. At this 10K, he finished with a time of 34:56.

So based on this time, what should we expect at Boston? I plugged his 10K results into this Runner's World Calculator, and it gave a marathon time of 2:40:41. Of course it doesn't factor in injuries. So hopefully, the cut won't be an issue. In that Runner's World interview, Lance mentioned he was planning to run at least a mid 2:40's for Boston. So he may be on the right track.

It looks like they'll have good weather for tomorrow's marathon. The latest forcast is for a high of 56°F, a low of 43°F and partly cloudy skies.

Thanks to the reader who pointed me to these 10K results.

Kenyan Domination at Boston Marathons

The weather looks good for Monday's Boston Marathon. The forecast is for a low of 40°F, a high of 59°F and partly cloudy skies. One interesting pre-race article is from the Boston Globe. It reports on the history of Kenyan domination at the Boston Marathons. Their domination also extends to the other major marathons. Here's an example of how dominating they have been:

Last year, 68 Kenyan marathoners were ranked in the world's top 100, including 13 of the top 20. Nine of them will be here [Boston] Monday, continuing an annual parade that now is in its third decade.

Some have asked why Boston has made it so attractive for Kenyans. Here's what one of the race's recruiters had to say:

Boston's approach always has been "best athletes available." If most of them are Kenyans, so be it.

I'm glad Boston recruits the best. As the article notes, it has "spurred their rivals, including Americans, to kick things up a notch." And we're seeing improvements. Ryan Hall finished 5th in London Marathon last weekend in the fastest time ever (2:06:17) by a US-born runner. In the 2006 Boston Marathon, the US actually had the most top 10 finishers (5 out of 10).

Here are some additional Boston Marathon stats and links not mentioned in the article.

All previous Boston Marathon male winners are listed here. Over the last 20 years, there were only 4 male winners not from Kenya (2 from Ethopia, 1 from Korea and 1 from Italy).

I've tallied the number of Kenyans who finished in the top ten of the Men's Boston Marathons since 2000. You can see how dominating they've been. The US men didn't quite win in 2006, but they actually beat Kenya for the number of top ten finishers.

# Kenyans in Men Top 10 Since 2000 
2007 - 7
2006 - 4 (5 from USA) 
2005 - 5
2004 - 7
2003 - 8
2002 - 6
2001 - 4
2000 - 7
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Stats based on results at MarathonGuide.com.

Lance Armstrong's Marathon Goals

In a Runner's World interview Lance Armstrong talks about his training and his marathon goals. He's planning to run his first Boston Marathon on April 21st, and he's hoping to at least match the finish time he had in last November's New York Marathon (mid-2:40s). Then he's planning to run his third New York City Marathon in November with a time in the low 2:30s.

In the interview, Lance mentioned that he has been training around Austin's Town Lake and around his house. He said that he was tentatively planning to run the Austin Half-Marathon on Feb 17th. He must have passed since I couldn't find his name in the race results and I didn't hear any mention of him in news reports.

What's motivating him to run marathons? Here's what he said:

I have to have something that essentially forces me out the door. I can sit around for a year and do a 10-K, no problem, even a half-marathon. But the marathon is scary and intimidating enough that you can't just phone that in. You have to train.

What's motivating him to focus on performance?

The answer is that it felt good to go from 2:59 to 2:46. You know, I did that by just running more and doing a few more longer runs and so I just figured that if I could, for the 3 or 4 months before New York, if I could perhaps get a little more scientific and a little more plans with the training and then obviously incorporating long runs and factoring in diet and all those things. I think running a 5:40 pace is doable. And I think, you know, I'm kind of interested in it.

It looks like that competitive spirit that drove him to win 7 Tour de France races is driving him to not just run marathons, but to run hard. If he can do a 5:40 pace, he'll finish with a time of under 2:29. How good is that? In the 2007 Boston Marathon, there were only 44 men who finished in under 2:29. If he can accomplish that in the next New York Marathon in November, will he call it quits? Or will he take it to the next level?