Notes
Pretty happy with this result. Wasn't sure what to expect. Warm up was OK, not great. Got to the line and it was pretty clear that it was a two person race. He looked at me and gave me fist bump. ;)
As we were in the first 1/4 mile he asked what I was shooting for -- I said 37 or 38. He said he was shooting for the same. About 1k in, we caught the back of the half marathoners. He was trying to draft off of me until he he decided to cut the tangent hard. I took that as a challenge and surged. By the time we got to the little U-Turn at around 1.35, I think I had him by about 6 seconds? Tried to back off a touch, but to keep the pressure on him. Did not look back at all. At about 2.75 miles, we had a sweeping left turn and I took that as an opportunity to steal a look -- he wasn't close. Again backed off a bit, but kept rolling. Just past 3 miles, we had almost 2 miles of trail (grass/gravel with some large rocks). Definitely eased up through here to make sure I didn't twist an ankle. Tried to steal a look here and there and was fairly certain it was over. Just kept motoring. About 1/2 mile before the finish, the lead biker started to congratulate me. Just kept the turnover up and cruised hard to the finish and got to break another banner. 2nd place was 37:53 and 3rd place was 41:30.
Good times!!!
ETA -- I don't think the last 0.2 was quite that fast, but I adjusted the time to match my official race time.