Notes
Really happy with this as a February effort and first race of the year. Hard to argue with the opportunity when it's warm and sunny and not a sight of snow anywhere.
Warmup, etc. was pretty smooth. I wasn't sure how good my legs were going to feel after a couple of weeks of higher mileage, but excited to get back out there.
Started out and synced with Rob that we'd target the first mile at about 6:00 pace and go from there.We started in a parking lot, took an immediate left, and then another left onto a bigger road about 150 yards after that. One guy out fast and then Rob and I with a couple of high schoolers right with us. the turn onto the main road was a clusterf*ck. Rob cut inside the cars and I went up the middle...the kids went wide. We settled in and the kids took off past us. Rob and I stayed together and true to pace. I admit the first mile felt like I was in quicksand....I want to pick it up, but knew that sticking with the plan was the right thing to do.
We turned the next major corner which was a solid downhill followed immediately after the corner by a bit of an uphill. I cruised the downhill a little faster than Rob, but then basically held up to get him back in touch. He pulled back up close, though not right with me. Held this for a while until we got to about the mile mark.
At that point, I decided Rob was gonig to stay back a little bit and I was probably on my own. The two HS kids were a ways up, but I decided it was time to see what they had. Switched gears and worked the tangeants (yes, there were a couple). Once I shifted and ran for a bit I was pretty surprised to see my pace had dropped to around 5:30. Wasn't sure about holding that for two miles, so I tried to relax a little. Didn't seem to chance the pace by more than a few seconds. Within a half mile I'd caught and dropped the first HS who didn't know anything about tangeants.
Coming up to the next square corner (this race was one big square loop), I was closing hard on the other HS runner. He took the corner wide (no idea why) and I pulled up on his shoulder. I decided to sit there for a bit and recover a little from the exertion of catching him. That lasted about 50 yards when I realized how much he was struggling. Time to put him away.