Notes
Magis Miles Mile. Was pretty excited going into this one, thought I could do something different and wanted to commit to competing. Colder than expected in Chicago, not prepared for that. Feet not feeling great on the warm-up, but legs as a whole felt terrific. Noticed on the line that the "4:15" runner was not participating, so knew things would not string out, but was very surprised that nobody pushed the pace at all. We went through the 409 in 73 (200, 37 at which I remarked we would have a championship-style race). Came through 4 in 2nd and just thought its a 3 lap race now. Next lap things picked up a bit, and I sat tight as we came through in 2:23. Was waiting for the Bartlett coach (won last year) to make a move as he was the fastest in the field. Instead, it was Hedman and another guy who went ahead and Bartlett followed. Came through 1200 in 3:32 and I was in 4th. Bartlett blasted away and I wanted to make sure I competed with the other two. Passed them with 250 to go (one goal for today was beat Hedman, but he apparently wasn't in great shape) and was then sort of content. Too content. Leader had about 40 meters on me at that point (his 1200 to 1400 was probably a 30, no joke). I saw signs of fatigue though and tried chasing him down. Closed the lead a little bit, but legs said no in the last 100. Was passed in the last 20 meters by one person and took third.
All in all, pretty happy with today. Mind was in a positive place. Competed and had a solid negative split. Beat some quality (albeit out of shape) runners - Hedman and Zeman. I almost want to do the open race next year as I can rely on it to have more people pushing, but really I want to beat the Bartlett coach - he got me by 4 seconds this year, last year it was about 20. That being said, I just want to race more. This was really fun.
Note: Also, did not consume any caffeine pre-race. Figured at this point my morning workouts are more placebo effect than anything