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.