St. Louis’ Colleen Casey blew her preordained race tactic of starting slow and picking up the pace in the second half of the Olympic Marathon trials Sunday in Boston. She found herself near the pack around icon Joan Benoit Samuelson, winner of the first women’s Olympic Marathon in 1984. Samuelson  said this marathon would be her last, and many of the runners paid their respects.

“She’s the reason we’re out there, so I decided to hang with her,” Casey said. “It was absolutely not in my race plan, and I started feeling the effects after about 13 miles.”

Casey finished 118th in 3:01:36, more than a half-hour behind race winner Deena Kastor.

“It’s different and difficult because it’s such a small field,” Casey said, noting that she usually runs among thousands of runners, not 146. “A lot of us are used to being in the front, so when you’re in the back, you think something’s wrong.”

Casey noted that the course looped four times on the same roads as the Tufts 10K, a race in which she ran poorly five years ago, prompting her to give longer distances a try. She didn’t fare much better Sunday.

“When I realized I wasn’t going to have a great day, I said to myself, ‘What is it with this course?’ It’s flat, but it’s along the Charles River, so you have a pretty good headwind in one direction. Apparently, Boston and me don’t get along.”

Casey said she probably would focus in the short-term on the half-marathon, “but after running like this, I have to do another one.”

Casey is finishing a one-year appointment as a visiting professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut. She’ll return to St. Louis for the summer, then will be teaching full-time at the University of Texas-Arlington.