Notes
There are two ways I'm looking at this race: on one hand, it's almost exactly what I was shooting for, I haven't trained well at all over the last 8 weeks, and it's a 12 second PR. I'm (honestly) very happy. On the other hand, there is more time to be had, right now. I could feel myself backing away from the edge ever so slightly more than once during the race. But as a relative newcomer to racing, this is why I race (and need to race more): to learn.
This was fun and awful, all rolled into a sub-6:00 ball. Awesome.