Notes
The Bix, long have I heard of this race. I knew the start was a steep uphill and it did not disappoint. Drew and I weren't too far up in the starting corral so we had a lot of weaving to do (15sec to the start line) but it was pretty fun bounding past 100's of people. The hill wasn't too difficult but who knows if I took it too hard. First mile: 6:08. We then proceeded to the long downhill section where we basically just tried to stay comfortable even when hearing mile splits much closer to 5min.
Then came the surprise of the race when there was a hill at the bottom near the halfway point. This one was quite steep and I was not really mentally prepared for it. Nonetheless, I got over it fine and tried to reevaluate. Hit halfway in 19:50, which worried me about breaking 40 (I forget to take away the 15sec to the startline) as most of the way back was uphill. Chase Moser came up to Drew and I then as we came upon the unexpected hill again. At this point Chase drew away and Drew chased (ha ha) as I held back.
After up and down that hill, I gathered myself before the long climb back and gradually kept passing people but getting confused by my splits as my pace likely got above 6min again. The 6mile mark seemed to be way too far away and too close to the start, and I knew my time was already over 34min but coming up to a downhill. This was another weird part of the race as I pretty much recovered here and was breathing easily so I sped up once I got more confident with the downhill. Soon it was 400m to go and I kicked fairly well.
Looking back at my chip time, I was pretty happy with a negative split and being 10-15sec closer to everyone in front of me as I wasn't in the elite coral. Fun race, I can definitely see where experience would help knowing how it run it though.