The Newton Hills, miles 17-21, commonly referred to as Heartbreak Hill.
It’s often the breaking point for most runners that compete at the Boston Marathon.
It was a point during Monday’s 127th annual race where the world’s greatest ever marathoner, Eluid Kipchoge of Kenya, proved that, yes, he is human, finishing sixth overall after dropping back at mile 20. It’s also the point where Ross MacAndrew started to feel the effects of his hard-fought battle on the historic course, where his intended goal of breaking 2 hours, 20 minutes had to be adjusted with still six-plus miles remaining until he reached the finish line on Boylston Street.
MacAndrew, a Prout School alum and the Crusaders’ current girls’ track and cross-country coach, gutted his way to a respectable time of 2:27.59, an effort that placed him 109th among the 24,607 that finished on a cold and rainy day in Beantown.
“I’m happy with the effort. The result wasn’t there,” said the 31-year-old Wakefield resident. “I was on for a while. I felt good. Mark (Skinkle), my coach, said to run your own race. There was a while that I could see a pack ahead of me and I was sitting behind them and I just felt comfortable and good through half (the race), and even a little farther. Once those hills hit, I was working on them, I actually felt better than I usually feel on the first two (hills) and then the second two, it kind of got to me. I was hoping I had a little more at the end and the legs were just cement. It was just everything to kind of finish today.”
MacAndrew was the third RI finisher at Monday’s race. Westerly’s Andrew McCann was 32nd overall with a time of 2:21.06. Providence’s Andrew Guen, a Brown University grad and member of the Brown Running Club, was 37th in 2:21.43.
MacAndrew, a veteran of several marathons with a PR of 2:25.21 from Boston in 2019, felt he was ready for a time in the 2:18 range and a qualifier for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Back in November, he was 26th at the Philadelphia Marathon at 2:29.05. While he wasn’t particularly pleased with his time, the training he’s done since the Nov.19 race had been strong leading up to Boston.
“I felt like I was in good shape but it just didn’t pan out,” he said, about Philadelphia. “I put in a lot of work between that race and today. Mileage-wise, we built it up to a certain point and I’d hang around there and bring it back down. Peak mileage, one week, I went a little crazy and went 137 (miles) for the week and 510 (miles) for the month of March, which is a lot. But I felt really good after that, surprisingly. That was more mileage than I did for Philly and confidence was up, so that was good.”
MacAndrew was at 2:17-2:18 pace in the early stages of the race. He averaged miles between 5:13-5:16 for the first quarter of the race, hitting his opening 5K in Ashland at 16.19 and passing through Framingham and the 10K mark at 32:30. He reached Wellesley and the halfway point in 1:10.01.
Although not ideal with the rain steady throughout the race, MacAndrew didn’t mind the weather conditions for the most part.
“At one point I noticed that it was just down-pouring and then let off really easily. Not the worst one I did up here,” he said. “Temperature-wise, it was good. I like keeping it cool, 40s and 50s. It was fine. Headwind, it was not ideal. It wasn’t super windy, but anytime you got that going on it was kind of bothersome, so you kind of hang behind somebody if you can, but you can’t also let that dictate your whole race. You got to get around them or drop back a little to kind of get into that comfort zone. That’s what you do. I was working it when I could, but dropped back and pushed ahead when I needed to.”
While his pace did slow up after Wellesley, it wasn’t overly significant, allowing MacAndrew to still run his solid time at just under 2:28. He ran 6:19 as he crested Heartbreak Hill at mile 21 and passed through 40K near Kenmore Square at 2:19.07 after clocking his previous mile in 6:18.
MacAndrew is still focusing on hitting the qualifying standard for the U.S. Olympic Trials, scheduled for Feb. 3, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. The standard is 2:18, which must be achieved by Dec. 5 of this year. He’s looking at potentially running the Hartford Marathon in the fall.
“I really need a flat course, something that’s a little easier,” he said. “I love doing Boston, but it’s a tough course to mentally prepare for. The hills come at a bad time…I got to put a little work in. Today was an eye-opener for what I have to work on.”
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Former East Greenwich standout Nick Ross finished the race with a time of 2:52.44. Ross, who was experiencing a slight hip injury prior to the race, was just over his current PR of 2:52.24 from Boston last year. On a positive note, he ran negative splits the second half of the race. Ross was 1:27.03 at 13.1 miles and averaged under 6:20 for the remaining two miles leading to the finish at Copley Square.
