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Notes

I found myself close to the front pretty early on. Banana man took the first 800 in about 2:30, but we caught him by 1500m . Ran most of the race in 7-8th place.

A lot of hills on the course today. The profile didn't look too bad on line, but there were a lot of rolling hills, a few pretty steep. I medium tough course, but a great day for running.

Rolled right on pace for the first couple miles, and felt great. At about 1.5 miles, my right hamstring started to tighten a bit. This had first happened on the track a week or so back, but eased out over the last 10 days. Felt progressively worse, until finally my hamstring cramped about half way thru mile 3, pulling me to a near stop. I lost a lot of ground to a 26 year old ninja turtle (orange belt and red eye band...Rafa-angelo?) who I had been running with. Dropped back to 8th place and heard a couple guys on my tail.

I nearly stopped to a walk, but pressed to a slow jog for a 100m or so up a long hill. I probably dropped a half minute to Rafa-angelo before my leg started to loosen and I worked it out to the point where I could get back to 6:15 pace. Generally, I dont like courses that loop back against outgoing runners, but the support at this point in the race (mile 4?) was really helpful, and after a painful mile I was back at my goal pace.

Between mile 4 &5 I started to regain some steam. I picked off the only other masters runner I saw, and one other guy. Right at mile mark 5 I caught back up to Rafa-angelo, and goaded him on to go with me to catch 3rd place. He didnt, and I gapped him by 10m or so, and was probably 20-30m behind 3rd place.

At mile 5.5 Rafa-A came flying by in a kick. I seriously dont know what he was thinking. He pressed too early, and almost certainly didnt realize the last .25 was straight up a steep hill. Right at the 6 mi mark as the climb started there was a poster of Ali gloating over Liston that said "The Knockout Punch".

I had warmed up over the last mile (an old habit from HS) and knew where the hill was steepest and where it broke relatively flat. I attacked hard at the bottom and built momentum. I took back Rafa-A right away, and #3 hit a wall so hard it looked like Ali caught him with a hook, so I found myself in 3rd place. Rafa didnt give up easy and we put on a show for the large crowd, which egged us on. He was quick, but I was quicker. At the end, I had about 5 strides on the turtle...I took 3rd overall...couldnt believe it.

After party had great beer (All day IPA and Ichabod ale!) and live music. Won $40 gift cert, nice pumpkinhead medal, and a cool picture.

Best part is I nailed my goal time (6:09) pace which is right on track for projecting a sub-3 marathon. I plan to nurse this hammy back to 98%, and say bring on the big city.