Notes
It's billed as around 6 miles. And it was, but short - 5.8 miles. Warm, but not quite as hot as Gelston. A very low-key race. No race bibs and about 20 runners. The race was a handicap start with the slowest runners first. I was in the next to last group with 2 others and 2 more left 2 minutes after my group.
I felt great warming up. I went out slow as I didn't have time for strides and ran negative splits expect for the hilly 2nd mile. The rest of the course was flat and undulating. One of the runners mentioned before the start that it was measured accurately as 6 miles. I mistimed my kick start I planned on 5.5 miles and an all out push for the last 400. When the runner ahead of me by about 20 seconds finished, I realized that the course was short, so my 400 kick was only about 80m. If I knew it was short, I would have kicked earlier.
My goal was to run faster than the Gelston 5 Miler pace which was 7:11. I got in at 7:08, so almost a mile longer and 3 sec per mile faster. I am happy with the result, especially because I was coming off a hard speed session on Wednesday.
The only downside is my left arthritic knee bothered me the entire warmdown. It was fine during the race.