Notes
First XC 10k! Didn't know what to expect. Goal was 35:30, hopefully sub-35. Jake said you needed to go out fast to simply not be towards the end, so I did so. Stayed aggressive early and tried to find a good spot. I didn't see anyone around me besides Jake a little ahead. No surprise because ended up coming through the mile super fast. It didn't feel crazy fast at the mile but probably a quarter to half a mile ahead it started to seem very fast. I knew I still had a lot of race left so I tried to settle into a reasonable pace. I ended up getting passed by a lot of people but I didn't feel like I dropped off too much. Until I came through the two mile going pretty slow; already down to nearly 5:50 pace.
Going up Bear Hill after that didn't help. I did catch up to Jake though and planned to stay with him for at least a couple miles. Since we were only a couple miles in at this point it made sense to work together. But when I put it in neutral for the downhill Jake didn't follow. And Jake is usually pretty good at downhills. I kept my pace conservative and looked back a few times in the hopes Jake was right behind, but I never saw him catch up. I pressed on.
I focused on trying to find the right pace and the right guys to work with. Entering the woods loop Rob caught up with me and I hung with him for a bit. He started to pull away and I thought I could keep up, but at that point I was feeling quite tired. Rob got about 40 or 50 meters ahead and stayed about that far away for the rest of the race.
I felt quite tired at the 5k but it was a decent split and I kept pressing on. Basically focused on trying to slowly increase my pace and go after guys ahead of me. It seemed to work. I had a good group I kept going back and forth with and we all seemed to push forward. At least we must have cause that 8k split was sweet. Better than my Westfield 8k by 10 seconds and I still have 2k left in me!
Last 2k kept pushing and had a decent kick once I got onto the main field for the final loop. Quite happy I was under 35, and by a pretty good margin at that! It feels really good to finally be at least a little fast again. Will simply keep up the consistency and keep moving forward slowly but surely.