Notes
Here is the breakdown
Mile 1 - 5:45
Kept it super cool this mile. In the first 200m my HR strap was slipping off, I think because I was cold and skinnier maybe. As I ran (and after I adjusted the belt), I did not notice any more slippage. But it felt like it was just going to fall right off there which was a bit distracting at first. As I haven't raced in a while, I just wanted to be very conservative and save as much energy as I could during this portion. People got out fast because of how downhill this start is. I couldn't believe how hard some of the downhills were graded. Seemed like we were plunging down at a certain point. Not sure how much it did to really make the thing that much faster, actually. (And not just saying that.) Alex Culler got out with me and then pulled away a bit after maybe 800m in.
Mile 2 - 5:39
Pulled up ahead of Alex about 1.5 in. There was a few other people who kept yo-yoing and would continue to yo-yo throughout the race. Never really a pack. But I think just focusing on racing I was able to keep pace and was pretty surprised by 5:39 on the watch.
Mile 3 - 5:56
I expected this one to be slower because by this point we had hit the bottom of the downhill start and were starting to climb back up a bit. Glad it wasn't over six as that might have been somewhat demoralizing. I knew I had banked some time to keep under 5:48 (36' pace). Still felt OK and told myself to be ready for a hard fourth mile.
Mile 4 - 5:41 ??
According to the mile markers this was 5:41. My watch had this as coming later on and the pace being high 5:50s again. But it is a certified course so I guess I would go with the physical marking. Either way, in the midst of battle I was choosing the optimistic take of 5:41 and I think that psychologically that helped me. Not totally sure what reality was because the tree cover of the park probably didn't help the GPS reading. I believe Alex passed me again near the end of this mile.
Mile 5 - 5:47
Whatever was going on the last mile, this was a GREAT bounce back. I had only checked my watch a bit before this but I glanced down and saw a 182 or so reading. I knew that was OK because I still felt good enough and I knew it had been lower early on. I was SO pleased to still be clicking off 5:40 pace with some undulating hills through this mile. By this point Alex and two others had a ten second gap on me that I was not (yet) allowing to grow.
Mile 6 - 5:45
Only thing I remember was promising not to look down at watch until I had surpassed a pre-determined landmark. I didn't feel yet like I was slowing down and it turns out I was still in that mid 5:40 range, so again really happy with that. Tried to gauge how far up Alex was at this point and it was maybe 12ish seconds.
Final .2 - GPS measured this as .25 which kind of flushed out the .95 that it had me at for mile 4. Glad I got it down to a 5:20 clip for this. I felt like I was picking it up but honestly I didn't think I had that much in me. Maybe if someone had been closer I could have gotten under 75" or so for this final quarter.
At the end of the race I distinctly felt like I was going to puke for like five seconds, then it went away. Pretty dang tired afterwards. The good kind of tired. Knew I had given it a really honest effort.