Notes
Felt great. Camped out in a ditch the night before, then hiked over to the start around 6 am. Stretched, hid my pack, and warmed up for a couple miles. Waited around antsy until Micah and Aaron showed up, ran another mile with them. The race didn't start until 15 minutes after it was supposed to so there was lots of waiting anxiously, but I felt great once I started. Leroy and I held a steady pace about 20 seconds behind the leader for the first couple of miles, which turned into about 30 seconds then 45. I split off from him maybe 4 miles in. My shins had that dull pain of being overworked, but I soon forgot about it and kept my eyes on 5th, who had dropped off the pack. I had passed him easily by the half and was still feeling strong. 4th had dropped off and I was about 30 seconds behind him and slowly crept up to 25 seconds behind. With maybe 4 to go he dropped me to about 50 seconds. I changed my mind with a 5k left and started to roll. With 3k I was within 15 seconds, I passed him at the 1k. He kept on me and passed me with about 600 left. We turned the last block and I let it go and finished 1.5 seconds ahead of him. When I passed him he let out a "What the...?" I felt pretty good and was happy to have my racing legs still with me - probably due to the longer, slower pace. No complaints, but I think if I trained for one I could definitely drop another 2 or 3 minutes off of my time.