“They shot the gun without as much warning as we were all expecting — I think that's part of the reasons why John went down. But yeah, I was quick off the line and I was leading for the first little bit. My main goal, the first 5 to 6 miles, was just to kind of coast.”

“My main goal for the race was to be in that front pack or essentially be in the lead at mile 21, at the top of the last hill — that’s when things tend to start. You know, ideally by then there's probably a pack of five people and then I would try and fight for a podium or a win spot. And that was somewhat similar to how it played out.

The uphills didn't feel bad, I was just waiting for someone to make a move. John made a small one, but then he slowed down and got back in the pack. Every uphill I felt like I was just matching what anybody else was doing — that helped me feel pretty calm. Mostly I was just waiting for the big move to be made. And then when John went, I think I kind of missed it initially.”

“When I tried to catch him I brought three other guys with me and we ended up being the chase pack for the rest of the race. I was just throwing some surges in those last few miles. I didn't really know who was running with me at the time because I wasn't going to look at the front of their bibs.”

“Then I'd hit a big gust of wind in my face and I'd be like, ‘I don't want to lead’. So I slowed down and got behind the other two guys, and that happened probably three, four, or maybe five times.

I was surprised none of my moves seemed to even phase them. I made another move with close to 900 meters to go, when you take a right turn on Hereford. I pushed up that hill — tried to really surge hard — and it was a little discouraging, as I'm about to get to the top of the hill and I still see both of them. I think it just killed my momentum a little bit, seeing that neither of them were dropped. They weren't giving me an inch. They weren't giving me any distance on them.”

”It's just that emotional let down of not dropping either of them. So then when we start going toward the finish, and they start throwing in surges, I feel fine initially. And then when we hit 26 miles — about 320 meters to go — I just felt like I was pounding my legs into the ground, trying to sprint. But I was not speeding up at all, and they just slowly pulled away. It felt like I was running in sand — just working so hard and nothing's coming.

It was a good day. I have never been going down the home stretch of a marathon where I'm hitting pretty close to my average pace. I'm not able to speed up, but also I'm not failing — I'm not slowing down. Actually, I kind of thought I was gonna run a little bit slower, but that I would place a little bit better. So it's a little, you know, give and take. At the end I think I just didn't have the extra kick to secure second place position.”

“The crowds were so loud. I didn't realise how loud it was the whole time until about one thousand meters to the finish, you go under a little overpass — under a bridge — and for a moment you don't hear anything. My ears had been ringing for so long, just from how loud the crowd was, which is enjoyable. You know, you have fun with that.

It was motivating this year because last time I went under the bridge I kind of blacked out for a bit and had to run very slowly just to stay on my feet. But this time I felt like I was still pretty strong.

I tried not to get too excited early on. Two years ago I let it get to my head and I was like, ‘I'm crushing it — I can win this’, and I blew up really bad. So this time, in the first half, even though the crowds were loud and exciting, I had to wait until near the end where I was gonna really enjoy it.”

“You know, perhaps there are little things I could have done differently, but I don't know if anything I would have done differently would have been better or worse. So I'm leaving this race as a good one, which just gets me excited.”