Notes
Loop de loop half marathon in Decorah. Since I had been feeling so bad all week I was planning on starting out a little more conservatively. Nate Canton and Rebel both seemed to think running around 5:30 pace would be good. Canton took off a lot faster than expected though and I let a little gap develop to him. After he settled in I moved up and started running with him by the mile mark which was a fast, but likely incorrect 5:06. At this point I felt really good and decided not to think too much about the pace and just keep rolling based on feel. Down dug road we had Canton, Rebel, Nutmeg and bandit Otis and the 4 racers stayed together through Twin Springs and the Phelps hill. As we started the hill section after highway 9 I was still feeling pretty good and went up the hill pretty hard since I didn't think there would be too many hills. On the descent Rebel and I started to pull away from Nutmeg and Canton. Neither dropped off hard but I started to notice them losing contact whenever I got a look back. After the first big climb I realized I was very wrong about not having many more hills as we basically went up and down for the next 3-4 miles. I felt really strong on the hills though and tried to just keep a solid pace up them. The downhills were harder since I didn't want to get too out of control and destroy my quads with miles left of racing. Rebel fell off a little on some hills but was able to regain contact on the descents. On the last hill I got a pretty good gap on him though and at a hairpin turn he told me he probably wasn't going to catch me and I assumed he would be backing it off soon. It was great to have him along helping me pace and keeping me company and I'm sure that had a lot to do with this race going so well. The flat started at about 7-8 miles and I was pretty sure I was clear of Canton by quite a bit at this point. I got into a great rhythm and started hammering since I was still feeling so good after the hills. At this point I was pretty confident I was going to run a fast time. The mile markers kept rolling by and some well placed cheering by Hazard, Otis, and a few of the girls on the team had me pretty fired up throughout the race. The wind was a little rough at this point but I still felt strong into it. When I hit 10 I was starting to finally feel the fatigue from the race but was still confident in 3 more miles. After turning back NW though the wind got even tougher and I was fighting it a lot more than I had expected. Still stayed strong and finished this pretty boring stretch well enough. At the finish I saw 68 minutes and was excited but also questioned it. After Canton crossed in 70 minutes I was pretty confident it was wrong since he is pretty consistently a 72-73 half marathoner. His GPS said 12.65 so we agreed it was probably about 2:00-2:30 short depending on how accurate his GPS is on all the switchbacks. This would still put me at sub 71 on a tough course and I am very excited about that. Great start to the day.