Notes
Start 18th position in a double water fall. Crushed in pretty good, I actually was i about 6th when that happened. I didn't go out hard, just where I thought I would be. I got a couple pushes from the back, full on palmage, but it didn't really shake me up. Came through the first lap in 36, so I was right on target. After that I think the field realized that they were going to slow, people started passing me as I got into lane one. I wasn't really concerned because I new not everyone would be able to run 15 flat. Little did I realize that I ended up being in last place for the first two k. I heard Alex yelling "get aggressive" and Dan saying "stay right up with these guys", which is actually what I wanted to do.
Came through the first k in about 2:58, which was a little faster than I wanted, but I new I could slow down. The second k in 6 flat, which was good again, but I was starting to get tired. The third k was where my pack fell off of the lead pack, but I didn't realize it was that much. By now I was glad that the pace had slowed down, so I could recuperate a bit, but I didn't hear any of the lap splits. When I heard the 3k time of 9:07, I just thought, crap.
I knew that the pace wasn't going anywhere and I needed to take the lead. Whenever I made a move in the race I did it a little too strong, made a strong surge and then kind of slowed. Which is why the last two k I swapped the lead of the pack several times. I didn't really speed up a whole lot but it felt like I was just pushing hard the entire last two k. I didn't hear any splits, but I just kept fighting to stay with and in the front of the pack.
I'm not sure why I couldn't keep up the pace today. I feel like I raced all I had, which is one of the reasons I'm not terribly disappointed, because I don't think I could have squeezed more than 3 seconds out of the race. Sometimes I guess you just don't have it. I am really happy that it didn't just got downhill after the three k, which it very well could have, I'm glad I fought it out, I just wish it would have been faster.