Beautiful day for the race today.

American woman held the lead through the halfway point but has been dropped now. Meb has pulled away from the men's pack after leading the whole time, I personally don't know if he has the legs to finish at a personal best, but one would assume he's running on a lot of emotion and all.

Ernst returns to dominance in the men's wheelchair after a couple off years (he's basically an adopted Bostonian at this point - record 9 wins). American woman wins the woman's wheelchair.

So I'm a geek for this stuff (obviously since I love cycling too).

Jeptoo annihilated the woman's field. She's literally all alone in the picture and it looks like she'll break the Course Record handily.

Meb is running all alone in Cleveland Circle. We'll see if he can hold off the pack though.

Love seeing the crowds so big - hopefully they stay big. I remember as a kid they always seemed large and they've seemingly gotten smaller lately. So hopefully that changes now.

Wow. She fucking annihilated the Course Record by like 1:43. Wow.

8th fastest marathon ever run by a woman, on what is (generally acknowledged) to be probably the toughest course.

#2 woman came in under the Course Record too (by about 20 seconds).

Flanigan comes in in 6th place. 2:22:01

Meb's got about 10 minutes to go. 23 miles, 21 second lead.

Meb looks like he's hurting...Wilson Chebet is gaining on him a bit. 2.2 miles to go.

lead down to 15 seconds.

Looks like Chebet is gonna blow by him in the last few hundred meters - he's really picked up his pace (Meb hasn't dropped his pace at all).

Chebet's gotta be really tired...he clawed back like 1:12 to get into this place, so maybe he'll fade?

Would be real awesome if an American did manage to win.

Kenmore Square for Meb. Still holding off Chebet, but the lead is down to single-digit seconds.

Last KM.

Meb's gettin the energy from the crowd, widening the lead back out.

Boylston Street!

Chebet doesn't have a kick left. Meb is ripping it...he saved some gas. He's gonna do it...

First American Winner in 31 years :)

Pumping his fist. Looking over his shoulder.

Here we go.

HE DID IT!!!

You were early.

2:08:37 - Personal Best!

No, the tv coverage was late.

They posted the winner about 5 minutes ago ;)

NBC Sports ‏@NBCSports 7m
BREAKING: Meb Keflezighi wins men's race at #BostonMarathon. He becomes the first US men's winner at the race since 1983.

Well you should be watching on TV...more dramatic than reading it online :p

It's amazing how much this thing has grown. I've never really dug into the athlete tracking online. But I know so many people that are running now, and searching runners by city pulls up a bunch of others I had no idea were running, just familiar names from my hometown, etc. There's even 58 runners from Boise, a few of whom I've met or heard of in some context.

Go Bruins!

actually 7th, but it's still a 3 minute PR for her, very impressive. She came out at the post race presser saying she'll be back until she wins it. I was really rooting for her... :)

It has now officially become a goal of mine to run Boston someday. Might have to hit the age of 45 before the qualifying time is doable for me, but I will someday run it!

FM

Aaah my bad.

np, as I said, I was rooting for her so hard and felt kinda disappointed when I saw her fell back off the pack but then again, it's a personal best from a previous best of 2:25 or so. She will be back to try it again.

FM

Wouldn't surprise me if she did better then too. The emotions this year (being a local girl, after last year) no doubt really led her to come fast out of the gate, and with one under her belt I imagine she'll be more...measured next year.

I moved these to a new thread on this year's race because it was awesome and deserves its own thread outside of the massive bombing thread from last year.

What a run by both Meb and Jeptoo.

Meb is known as one of the best (if not the best) race tacticians out there. I will be very interested to read some of the longer post race articles. I have no idea how he was able to build such a lead against maybe the best Boston field assembled. There was significant speed in that race--by times, Meb should not have been in the top five and shouldn't have been contending. But he's a racer. Just phenomenal.

And Jeptoo--what a freaking studly run. That was nothing short of amazing. Maybe the greatest female athletic accomplishment we've seen.

Watching Meb finish the last 4 miles of that race was just awe-inspiring. You could tell he was hurting in the worst way. The way he dug down and kept turning his legs over was so great. What a great day for Boston and for this lovely little country of ours.

actually, it was her strategy to go out and set the pace like that. I just don't think she expected so many runners to be able to keep up with that blistering pace for as long as they did. As it was, her time would have won all but 3 of the races ever, so it wasn't so much the strategy as it was the caliber of the field.

This should get as much attention as any other story from this marathon. This duo has been going at it for nearly four decades......

Father-Son Duo, Team Hoyt, Celebrates 37 Years of Inspiring Teamwork With One Last Boston Marathon*|*Josh Misner, Ph.D.

Thanks!

Fair enough. Maybe she'll think twice about calibrating her strategy vs. the strength of the field next time, or maybe the field will be weaker.

Indeed. The Hoyt's are always one of the highlights of the race.

In other highlights - I saw a little person. She came through between the wheelchair folks and the lead woman and she was lookin strong. I hope she made it!

As i said to others though - with the fact she's probably half as tall as anyone else she ought to consider the half-marathon a victory. Awesomely inspiring!!

Not to quibble, but of the marathon majors, New York is generally considered to be a harder race, in part because of the number of turns on the course and the ascent into Central Park. For most elites, New York is two to three minutes slower than Boston.

But, yes, most of the fastest times are set at London, Berlin and Chicago.

And I'm not taking anything away from Jeptoo. That was an absolute tour de force today.

DT there was a man later on as well. He was not running as fast as the girl though.

Great crowds today out there though, was outstanding atmosphere. I know that being there in person, we lose touch of the "race" and had to look later online to see who won, but what we gained was priceless in the interaction with all of the runners as they went by. One of my top ten memories easily, getting to volunteer and be a part of this during this weekend.

Until you run it, Alan, which you will.

exactly, I also think it was her strategy to come out as fast as she did...

Her post race presser, a tiny 57 seconds that says a lot:
Shalane Flanagan: Boston Marathon 2014 Post-Race Interview - YouTube

FM

Fair enough. My point was that it's not a pancake-flat race like London/Berlin/Chicago/Rotterdam/Tokyo.

It also doesn't typically get the same caliber fields because it's ineligible for World Records. Not saying it doesn't get great fields, but it loses a little luster in the eyes of the elite racers for that reason perhaps. Someone aiming to set a WR is going to go to Tokyo or more likely, London.

She's not hard on the eyes.

Iirc it hasn't been great weather like today or last year in a few years.

Don't know if you guys caught that but Meb ran with the name of the four victims written on his bib :)


FM

I heard that on the news - that's quite badass.

Meb Keflezighi's Secret Weapon Is Ryan Hall

Thought this was interesting as I didn't realize similar things you see in the Tour de France happen in marathon running.

Class move by Hall and the other Americans it sounds like. The East Africans typically run as little "mini national teams" sending out pace-making guys etc., so it's nice to see the Americans finally catching on.

Great sacrifice by Boit too in going out there with Meb to essentially pace him, even knowing he wasn't likely to take it himself.

Hopefully now people can stop slagging on Hall for his individual time and recognize the role that him and the other Americans chose to play. Perfectly above-board and legit, and a great contribution.

Blog from my journalist friend who also ran the marathon last year.

The 118th Boston Marathon Was About People — Just Like The 117 Before | GregHallKC

Nice writeup.