The coldest Boston Marathon in 30 years turned out to be a breeze for Thomas Pore of Saco.

Well, more of a rain-soaked gale, but Pore persevered to run his fastest marathon, breaking 3 hours for the first time in four attempts at Boston.

“There were times I felt amazing,” said Pore, a 37-year-old director of information technology for a software company in Kennebunk. “I felt really good after Heartbreak Hill. But other times, there was a torrential downpour and wind in your face.”

Pore placed 197th among all men in 2 hours, 42 minutes and 33 seconds. No other Maine runner finished among the top 250.

Tracy Guerrette, 37, of St. Agatha was Maine’s top woman. The 2017 Maine Marathon champion and former University of Maine basketball star completed the 26.2-mile journey from Hopkinton to Boylston Street in 2:54:02.

“This is probably the most challenging race I’ve ever run,” said Guerrette, wrapped in two blankets more than an hour after finishing and huddled inside a doorway of the Westin Hotel to keep warm. “It was so cold. My goal at one point was to finish. I couldn’t feel my left foot. I still can’t feel my toes. That’s how cold it was.”

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Running among the elite field at Boston for the first time, Guerrette actually hung with a lead women’s pack that included eventual winner Desiree Linden for the first 4 miles.

“It was pretty conservative there for a while,” Guerrette said. “Knowing the conditions, I think most of us readjusted our racing plan. The headwind was tremendous the entire time. The rain was pretty much a torrential downpour the whole time.”

Rob Gomez, the admirable 2017 Beach to Beacon 10K runner-up from Windham, dropped out at 18 miles after being on a 2:27 marathon pace.

“I felt kind of bad, and I still feel kind of bad,” Gomez said later Monday afternoon. “Credit to everyone who finished the race. I think I was not as well dressed as I should have been.”

It was 38 degrees in Hopkinton Monday morning when the elite women started approximately half an hour before the first wave of a field that numbered 27,048. Wind gusted up to 32 miles per hour. At times, rain fell in sheets.

After falling behind the lead pack, Guerrette stayed with a secondary group of elite women for another few miles, but their sub-6-minute pace proved too much, leaving her to run alone until a few of the elite men caught her late in the race.

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Guerrette had trained for a 2:40 or better result, but quickly tossed aside that goal. Instead, she soaked in the experience of the police escort to Hopkinton, hanging out in a church near the village green before the start, warming up alongside Linden and Shalane Flanagan.

“Boston’s such an historic, epic race, and there are people out there the whole time cheering you on,” Guerrette said. “I had the really neat perspective of going through these towns by myself, and the cheers were just as loud for me as they would have been for any elite woman.”

She showed her thanks with a fist bump or a wave.

“That would make them roar even louder,” she said. “My face was kind of perma-grinned, and it was so cold that it stayed that way. I think it was a rare opportunity to come to Boston and enjoy it.”

A year ago, the temperature in Hopkinton was 70 degrees at the start and grew warmer on the way to Boston. Pore walked in the latter stages of his race, and came to a reckoning upon finishing in 3:18.

“I realized if I want to be serious,” he said, “I have to be serious about training.”

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A graduate of Sanford High, Pore had run some indoor and outdoor track at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, then not for about eight years after graduation. He’s been back at it for five years, but only serious since Boston a year ago. He took three days off after that marathon, then began running a minimum of 5 kilometers each day. He threw himself into an 18-week training regimen leading to this year’s 122nd running, averaging 75 miles per week and peaking at 85. He also cleaned up his diet.

“My goal was 2:37,” he said. “I didn’t hit my goal time, but I’m still pleased with 2:42 given the head wind and rain.”

He wore a winter hat and gloves, with hand-warmers tucked inside until they got soggy and lost effectiveness.

“My hands were so cold, I had a difficult time opening my (gel packets),” he said. “So I had to use my teeth.”

Christine Hein, 43, of North Yarmouth was the only other Mainer besides Guerrette with an elite bib. The state’s top female finisher last year (in 2:55:28), Hein never made it to the line Monday because of a recent injury as she began her taper.

Other runners with Maine connections who endured the weather included:

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Jared Moore, 38, a native of Presque Isle who attended high school in Yarmouth and is now a physician in Columbus, Ohio. “There was never a time when it wasn’t raining or windy, so that was tough,” Moore said after finishing in 2:56:45.

Still, the heat of the previous two Bostons may have been worse. “It’s just hard to keep hydrated,” he said. “This is cold, but it was easier to keep up.”

Ryan Goebel, 41, who moved to Waterville last summer after his wife was hired as a Colby College biology professor. “There were times in this race I felt wonderful,” said Goebel, who came within 11 seconds of his previous marathon best, finishing in 2:58:32. “There were times I was asking myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ ”

Goebel wore prescription glasses with an antifog coating he picked up at Sunday’s Expo. “It worked pretty well,” he said. “I wish I could remember the brand.”

Colin Schless, 35, and Samuel Bradbury, 37, were among a group of current and former Mainers celebrating the 10th Epic Man challenge. Normally, they kayak from Peaks Island to Portland, bike overnight from Portland to Hopkinton, and then run the marathon.

Sunday’s weather scuttled the kayak portion and black ice made biking unsafe, so they biked instead from Portland to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and arranged for a 2-hour excursion Monday morning on Boston BikeBus – a rolling cardio studio equipped with spin bikes – before running the marathon together in 3:01:44.

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Conditions on the course? “Surprisingly good,” said Schless, who lived in Portland for eight years before moving to California. “We both were just saying we enjoyed ourselves.”

“You can never prepare for wet and cold,” Bradbury said. “You just have to laugh it off.”

Indeed, “It seemed like when the rains came down harder,” Schless said, “everybody just yelled louder.”

Joan Benoit Samuelson, the 1984 Olympic women’s marathon gold medalist and two-time Boston winner from Freeport, was pleased to see an American woman win the race for the first time since Lisa Larsen-Weidenback in 1985.

“I was very happy for Des,” Samuelson said of Linden. “She’s come close so many times and she finally did it here.”

Samuelson didn’t run Monday, but her daughter did. Abby Samuelson, now living in Portland, Oregon, ran 3:15:42.

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Chris Troyanos, who serves as medical director for both Boston and Beach to Beacon, said 2,527 runners – included 25 elites – were treated as of 4:30 p.m., the vast majority for hypothermia. Core body temperatures dipped into the low 90s, possibly the high 80s. There were 81 runners transported to area hospitals.

“We had a lot of runners who dropped out and a lot of runners who needed to be rewarmed,” Troyanos said. “If you gave me a choice of heat versus this, I’ll take this every time. Even though the volume goes up with what we have to do, it’s much easier to warm somebody up.”

Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or

Gjordan@pressherald.com

Twitter: GlennJordanPPH


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