Notes
I write long logs just for my own benefit to help me remember races and experiences. With that said... BUCKLE UP.
Honestly pretty satisfied with this, even though there's a long way to go. Just kind of did it on a whim because JP said he was going to be there. Surprisingly competitive for the size of the race (came in 5th out of only 150ish). Just was looking to get a good effort out there and have some fun... and not do any damage to myself! Awesome awesome public park, I plan to go back there for at least a couple weekend runs and hopefully a tempo or two. Shaded, mostly flat trail, just a little rooty in parts but overall pretty sweet. With some big rain in the past two days , the trails ran pretty soft, though there weren't too many puddles or slick spots. INCREDIBLY humid, though... 90% humidity or so when I got there, actually randomly rained for like 2min on my warmup (completely sunny otherwise!) and that brought it down to 75-80% but I was still POURING out sweat. Temp was fine though
Saw Chris Bailey and Brian Johnson (last year's 1-2), but some guy I didn't recognize actually took off ahead of both. JP said he's had some good workouts but has been a little all over lately, but I still figured he'd beat me. At the first mile I was in 7th or 8th and JP had a few seconds on me, but by 2 I was back on his shoulder sharing 5th. He said he wanted to go conservative for 3 and really crank the last mile, so I was hesitant to go by expecting he'd blow me away on 4, but did anyway a little past 2 and instead grew the gap a bit on 4... off day for him I suppose. Was reeling in #4 (another out of state guy) for a while but he made a good push in the last quarter and I couldn't close it down. Finish was a little mentally tough haha, you go past it at around 3.5 and go straight out for another .25 and then turn around. But overall pretty sweet course, essentially 2x two mile loop. Never happy to positive split a race but was mostly even after getting a little excited on 1. Plus, who knows, markers can always be off by a few meters either direction. GPS actually had me getting progressively faster but only got the course as 3.93 so who knows.
The time is nothing special but comparing to Chris and Brian, I can't complain. Just over a min back of Chris who has ran 49:33 15k, 70:55, 32:34 (CRBR), and 2:31 at Boston in the past few months... pretty crazy seeing him lose to a guy not named Michael Banks! 30s back of Brian who is 39 but still crushing it... he was the one that beat me in my HM (72:3x), then 33:30 at CRBR. And I'm not comparing to try to speculate that I'm in xx:xx shape or anything, just to say that I'm presumably in at least slightly better shape than the time would suggest. Felt reasonably strong and pace matches most recent 5k so that's good I guess.
Fun event and even got a 9:30am hot dog (didn't grab a beer tho #prude). 2nd-6th all cooled down together, good times.