Me, chugging into the last few hundred yards on fumes.

I'm rockin' the Tufts baby blue shorts and Tufts rowing toque. (You gotta'.) I almost certainly overdressed for the temps, which started out around 38 degrees but got to mid-40's with zero wind by the time I finished just before eleven o'clock. There were very few people who had tights on, and these are semi-serious long-johns from Hind.

I started out with a pair of $2 white gloves that I'd bought at the Expo the day before, but I ditched those about three or four miles in. I considered ditching the hat, too, but that would've probably done more harm than good since my noggin was completely soaked in sweat. The chill would've been worse than the heat.

I attempted to just even-split the whole race, and aside from a predictable fade and going out way too damn fast in the first mile, I think I did a pretty good job. The longest run of my life had been an 18 mile race in mid-September (1:56 for a 6:28 average pace per mile), but I'd developed a bit of a gimpy knee in early October which necessitated me cutting my training way down. I definitely noticed the lack of proper long runs after the 16 mile point; my quads pretty much went into Operation Shutdown. From that point on I just tried to keep up a fast turnover, take a lot of steps per minute, and keep my footfalls directly underneath me and not overstride.