Notes
Man, this course was tough. Started out good, first 2 miles rolling but with more downhill than up. That starkly changed with the 3rd mile. And the 4th mile. And the 5th mile. It ended up being a 270 ft climb in just over 2 miles, from the midway point of the 3rd mile to the midway point of the 5th. Man that sucked. Things got better on the dirt road, the 6th and 7th miles were pretty good, even with the ground being a little squishy. 8th mile was pretty good too, still felt strong here. I wish I could have gone faster on the 9th mile but I think fatigue was just setting in at that point. And the wind. The wind got really bad once we started going uphill again. The 9th mile ended by going up a hill, then the 9 to 9.5 mile mark was the worst. Turn the corner, huge half mile uphill, the wind trying to push you down the entire time. It finally let up with about 0.3 to go but the damage was already done. Had a decently strong finishing push but those hills just killed me.
I can't complain with my performance. Pretty good for my first 10 miler considering how tough the course was. I feel like I had a really good mid-race push and I felt good through 8. But those last two miles killed me and I really slowed down on the first hill too. This is the point where I'd say I need to work more on hills, but, uh, I'm starting to have achilles problems. Oddly enough, I didn't feel a thing during the entire race. It was great. I think the combination of stretching and staying loose kept it on hold the entire time. However, once I was done the race and standing around for a bit, once I went for my cooldown it started hurting just a little ways in. So still more work to do there.