Notes
Super hilly course but it was 6.08-6.14 miles on people's Garmins (which usually measure long) so this was probably really around 33:00 and I'm not counting it on the comeback PR list. Micah Tirop showed up, and I ran sorta close to him for the first mile, which I hit in 4:58, which was too fast, even though it was mainly downhill. Hit the next mile in 5:20, and because of the 22s drop-off, I tried to keep focused and stay strong on the hills. Hit the third in 5:19 and that was when I started really falling back. I forgot what my 4th mile was, but I didn't split it because it was something insanely fast even though there was a 180 degree turnaround. The 4th and 5th miles were 9:53 and I ran my last 1.1 6:41 (5:35 pace). Because the course was short, I guess the 3rd and 4th miles were where the distance wasn't right.
I felt like I was giving a good race effort for the first 2-3 miles, but once I started falling back a lot, it was hard to really push. I felt pretty good at 4 miles and at 5, I was still feeling a little strong and was going to try and push it in the last few minutes, but a really long, steep hill absolutely killed me and I probably had close to a 3:00 half mile on that last mile. Once I had about 800m to go, I just kept a steady effort in instead of kicking it in hard. I'm definitely a rhythm runner, so I had trouble with this course and I feel like maybe this would have been a 32:11 on a flatter course.
I can tell I need to get back on my leg routine and could tell my aerobic system couldn't come into effect like I wanted to because my legs were holding me back on the hills. Charlie said there were something like 17 uphills on the course and except for the beginning and end, you were pretty much always going up or down.
I guess it's not too bad of a first race and I'll see how the workouts go in the next week or two and make a decision to run the Zoo Run or not. The race was run really well, the shirts were good and the award ceremony got started pretty quickly, when most races I go to, it takes quite a while.