Notes
I don't know how I got 17:35 on my watch, probably hit stop at the wrong timing mat, but they officially gave me this time just under 17:30, which I rather prefer. Josiah went with me and ran the race with me today, which was AWESOME. He stayed with me through about a mile and then I think started to fade back, but he still ran pretty well for being at the end of a long track season and finished 4th OA with an 18:23, and was 2nd in his AG to the BVHS runner. For some reason I think this race course is just deceptively harder than the elevation profile appears; I need to look back at my times from previous years but this one always seems to have slow times for me compared to other races in the summer.
Josiah and I went out immediately in the lead along with a kid from BVHS (nice kid it seemed). After we came through the mile he started to pull away from me but I just eased back a bit and tried to stay in contact. About halfway through the second mile I sensed he was fading a bit so I made a strong move and put him away at that point and pressed the third mile about as hard as I could to hold the lead because I didn't really know how far back he was. As it turned out I got him by over 30 seconds, but I didn't know that, so it sure helped me keep the hammer down! It was fun to run to win and to win today. Garmin splits were: 5:41, 5:54 (it did not feel nearly that slow, but I guess it was), 5:34, 0:27.1. Course measured 3.09 by Garmin. It's supposed to be certified; I think the distance is true.
I was glad to feel some of my mojo come back today after feeling pretty dead this past week especially.