WOOHOO, you finished!! Great work, limewave!!

Even if you didn't get to your optimistic pace, finishing under 5 hours is awesome. There's always next time (you know you're already thinking about it)

I might try the 4:45 pace group (the next one is 4:15, blah, too fast) at my marathon and see if it goes better than yours. Maybe with a smaller crowd I'll actually be able to find and stick with them. The only thing is that I might want to take the beginning faster than the pace group... my training runs have been about 10 minute miles for the first 8-12 miles, and degrade from there. I'm not sure I want to go out assuming 10:40s from the start, or let myself naturally degrade. Hmm...

Back to limewave: another WOO HOO for you.