Notes
Tough race, I am happy enough with this, but it's hard to feel totally satisfied.
Warming up my legs felt pretty good, but a little flat. The morning of the race I was really nervous, but by the time the race rolled around, I felt calmer than usual. Not sure if that was good or bad.
This was a really fast field--too fast, really--so my plan was to let the peleton go and just run my own race from the gun. I wanted to run easy the first couple miles and work my way into the race. For the first two and a half miles this kid from Xavier ran with me, and he had a lot of fans out there. They kept yelling "Go Cornholio!" He kind of just sat on me, except for when he would pass me then slow down. Unfortunately he dropped off after a couple miles, and I was running alone the rest of the race.
Anyways, I was out even and through the mile in 5:17, pretty much perfect. I kept clipping off 77s and 78s and felt really good. The breathing was easy and the pace did not feel hot. 2 miles was even in 10:29. 3 miles in 15:47. I just concentrated on running easy, and I felt like I had a chance to run even splits all the way through. I'm really happy with how I kept the effort controlled here and how calm and relaxed I was running sub 5:20 pace. Halfway split was probably 16:25ish.
I kept it even through 4 miles (really these are 1600 splits, not miles) and hit 21:03. Shortly thereafter the main group lapped me, and after that it started getting pretty tough. I'm not sure if getting lapped had anything to do with that, but I did get a little adrenaline burst that then maybe put me a little over the line?
Ted didn't get any more splits, but basically I hit 6 miles in 31:50 or so, which would be 10:47 for those 2 miles: 5:23s... not so bad now that I see that. With two miles to go, it was just really fucking tough. I just tried to stay strong, and I fell from 78s and 79s to 81s. I thought a lot about the last 6 miles of Baystate and tried not to count laps, which was pretty much impossible. Every now and then I would get lapped by a straggler and do my best to hang tough. I'm happy with my mental effort through that part of the race.
Closed the last lap in 74, running hard to try to get under 33. The winner of the race double lapped me, just before my last lap.
The only guy I beat was Cornholio, but hey at least I wasn't last. Maybe if I'd had a good peleton to roll and didn't have to run solo for those last couple miles, I coulda run 32:30, but I am happy with this. It's an all-time PR since I never raced 10k in college.