Notes
YES!!!! Totally sick atmosphere for the race. Got sucked along for the first half, then started to move up and crushed the last lap in 33 seconds. Massive PR. Got 5th in my heat. 13th overall. By far the most surprising performance I've ever had. That's what happens when I stop thinking and just race. I flat out destroyed my expectation (4:38) and even beat my goal (4:35). It didn't really seem reasonable after I ran 4:43 two weeks ago. But I did it.
My splits were:
33/33/33/34/37/34/36/33. Or: 66/67/71/69. Or: 2:13/2:20. Obviously it looks like I just ran out of gas but that 33 tells me that I still had more left. I just let the pace sag for two laps. The first one was when the guy in front of me was dying, and the second one was after the lap I broke away from the second pack and started to lose focus a little bit.