Notes
Pretty good race. Hot as Hades out there (93 at race time?), but I managed to stay pretty cool on the warmup and strides.
Like last year, I got out pretty well towards the front of the pack, but had to work a little harder to get a clean line at the beginning. Was leading with a big pack through the mile feeling OK. The second mile was a blur, but things started to string out a little bit and besides getting passed briefly by a Lipscomb guy going up the sideways hill, I maintained my spot in the top 3 with the Belmont and Tennessee #1 guys. I think we came through the 2 mile in 10:02.
As we came back into the fields, I found myself moving into first, a position which I held and extended up to 5m with a few short surges. I could tell, as we passed the parking lot and we going to be making our last turn before heading home, that I didn't have a lot of gas in the tank, but I was hoping to draw out the two guys with me. Unfortunately, the girls directing traffic on the course led us the wrong way with ~600m to go which added on between 0.05 and 0.12 miles (not sure exactly though a lot of guys GPSed it at 3.22). This wrong turn was the nail in the coffin for me as I didn't have the strength to hold the two guys off for that much longer. With about 400m left, the two guys passed me and I settled into 3rd, my final position.
In the end, I was happy with the effort. Taking the additional distance into consideration, I ran a maximum of 6 seconds slower than last year, but it was a really hot day. Felt like I pushed myself pretty well on this one.