I woke up feeling strong, prepared, and ready to run a great race. It was pouring all night and was supposed to pour again in the afternoon, but rumor had it that the odds of a dry run were pretty good. So I was feeling pretty confident and decided to shoot for my stretch goal; qualifying for Boston. It would be a 20 minute improvement on my PR, but this is my second to last reasonable attempt to BQ in the open division. So I set out at a 7:15 pace with the plan of dropping back to the 3:20 pace group if things went to hell. And off to hell they went.