Congratulations to all those who ran Boston – you done good. Your time or place doesn’t really matter, the magic is that you got to run Boston. You trained hard, showed up this morning and ran – that is what was and is important.

Showing up.

Several people I know ran it today (Sam, Ron, Julie, Susan, and so many others. However, I did watch the race live and enjoyed it, but the stories of the non-elite runners are to me the important part of Boston.

No I didn’t run Boston. In my mind, there is around a 90% probability that I will never run it and that is okay, my priorities have changed and I am at peace with my choices. 

Instead, I ran outside on my test course this morning while the elites were running their race. I wanted to see how the Epic Reacts did on this course. Now I ran a pretty quick for me 10K in them yesterday, so I wasn’t going for any world records or anything.

Things started out pretty easy. It was wet and raining lightly when I ran, so I got to check out the grip on wet roads – good. Then once I got going down the hill, mmmm I might have accidentally picked up the pace a bit. Then when I got to the end of the first mile, I wanted to see whether the ER1s were going to put me in the ER. 😉

I know bad pun.

Anyway, I picked up the pace a little and other than a slow turn-around at the bottom of Pepin, I ran mile 2 at what I would consider my race pace. I was pretty surprised at how much I didn’t think about my shoes and just ran.

Isn’t that what you are supposed to do?

Yeah, I have been lucky with the last 3-4 pair of runnings that I have had that kind of experience, but today, I didn’t feel like I was working as hard to hit that pace. It could not have been the new shoes and must have been that I was psyched about watching the start of the marathon that got me a little more motivated.

Yeah, that’s it!

Although I gotta admit that when I looked at the Milestone App results that having 5% of my run being on “my toes” has not happened before in all the months I have had had the Milestone Pod.

When I got to the 2.0-mile point, I purposely shut it down. I don’t need a fast for me run two days in a row. A quick mile is one thing, but running hard uphill to finish the run wasn’t something I wanted to do today.

So instead I slowed way down and then slogged up the hill. I did pick it up a little again after that, but I caught up to Mary and finished up with her.

A really good run and the Epic Reacts are doing exactly what I want.

Although my left shoe does have a small crease in the tongue area. It doesn’t affect me during the run, but to get the fit I want, it might be that the 8.5s are just a slight bit too big.

I gotta admit I am liking them just a little.