Notes
Bix 7- huge PR, ran smart, could breathe, 18th/top Quad Citian. Really happy about the race this morning. I went into it with positive expectations despite the shitty week ive had with running/not being able to breathe. got up the hill well at the start and got into my rhythm right away. decided to hold back more the first couple miles since that always seems to be my issue with dying and my hamstring tightening up later on in the race. after the first mile I sat behind the lead pack of women and finch. I surged up McClellan and passed everyone, like 10 people, almost instantly and felt pretty good. tried to relax my breathing as I descended towards the turnaround. maintained my lead on the chase group through the turn and then finch passed me again. we yo'yo'd over the next 1.5 miles..i would blow by him on the uphills and he would catch back up on the straights. we both got passed by this dude, pretty aggressively actually, right before we turned back onto Kirkwood. as we approached the 5th mile I passed finch for the final time going up the steep hill and tried to tie a rope to the dude ahead. throughout the 6th mile my hammy was sorta tight but I tried really hard to relax my form and take shorter steps so that I could wind up for the last mile. the dude in front of me kept trying to get the crowd hyped as we turned onto brady so in my mind I was like no fucking way im losing to this douche. he maintained a 20ish meter lead on my as we went down brady street. I definitely opened up but he did as well so I didn't really make up any ground. by this point I felt confidently ahead of everyone behind although I never looked so I didn't really know. as I made the final turn and saw that the finish really didn't seem that far away as it has in previous years when I was dying, I turned it on even more. I started to catch the dude ahead of me and with about 200ish meters to go I went all in as I passed him and put like 5 seconds on him. I felt like I was closing a track race. I was fluid/strong/fast as I hit the line and was pretty excited when I saw the time as well. huge breakthrough race for me here at bix since ive never had a good race between hammy tightness, passing out, blacking out, etc...
Splits were: 5:24, 4:51(10:15), 5:06 (15:22), 5:09 (20:31), 5:16 (25:48), 5:14 (31:02), 4:33 (35:35), :02 (for .01mi.)