Notes
Final red leg!! This was a flying cruise - this was fun.
Watch had 6.23, so I think the red leg was a tiny bit shorter than mapped.
Holy cow, running in the daylight is SO MUCH better on this loop than running it in the dark. If nothing else, I had the confidence in the light to hammer on the open trails and that alone probably gained a minute if not more alone. This time also includes a quick hike to eat a gu for a burst of energy and focus - I don't know if that did anything, but I also don't think that it hurt much. (As an aside, the Cola Gu is... interesting. It's super heavily spiced, which makes it not taste that much like cola. It's not bad to be clear - it's just that I get way, way more cinnamon and cardamom (I think?) than cola).
It was also really nice to see my parents and Lisa and Steve before this loop! Coordinating was a little tricky, but nothing too bad. Honestly, knowing that this was the last loop helped the focus so much, as did the sunlight.
This wasn't even that fast all things considered! I was outside the top ten percent here.
Ended up swapping to the 2014 Madison Marathon long sleeve - I probably could have gone with a singlet or short sleeves, but I was happy to have the additional warmth from the long sleeve.
According to my watch, here's this loop (night loop) splits:
7:47 (8:58)
9:00 (9:59)
10:00 (11:04)
9:51 (9:56)
10:20 (11:53)
8:06 (9:27)
1:53/.23 (3:12/.35)
I find that super interesting; I would say that the last loop was a bit higher effort since we were in contention for sub 20 (okay, we were "in contention" in the way that we would miss it if I blew out my ankle or something - we went sub 19:30). But that's pretty consistently about a minute per mile slower; mile 4 is an outlier because I walked right after the water stop to eat a Gu.