Notes
Official time 39:15 for 12th overall, 3rd in 40-44. Cadence averaged 179. Course wasn't quite what I expected, but I gave everything I had. No excuses, no regrets. Lower back tight the entire time, and so was my right hamstring down lower than usual and on the inside for a change. Perhaps the hamstring tightness was secondary to the lower back issue, which was caused days ago by writing in bed while Mom and Lee were visiting, and which was exacerbated by carrying IKEA furniture two days ago. I'm not sure what difference that made, though. I just found the constantly rolling hills tough. I expected the initial two mile uphill and planned to go out in 6:10, which I did. Ryan said to slow down if that was too hard, which I did in the second mile. Then I planned to speed up to 5:50-55 on what I expected to be a 2+ mile downhill. In fact it was just more rolling hills that maybe tended more downward than upward, and I couldn't stay under 6:00 because of the uphills. I was still doing pretty well, though, until two steeper hills toward the end of the 5th mile and the beginning of the 6th slowed me down further without as much downhill to enable me to get my average pace back down again. I was pretty cooked as well but didn't wimp out at all. It was just harder and I was slower than expected. Apparently I didn't run the tangents very well or the course was a tad long. The weather (estimated) was mercifully cool but again I was surprised by how much the humidity still bothered me. The dew point was probably just over 60 but the humidity over 90%. Competition was thin. After the first mile I was alone in between two groups until the final mile when somebody passed me. Maybe I should have stuck with the group that I let pull ahead of me in the second mile.