Notes
First official team race for New Balance and my first time also at the 4 on the 4th. Did a few light drills and strides before the race. Weather was about as nice as you could ask for in terms of a 4th of July race, around 70 with low wind. Everything about this race was well done for except for the start, it literally happened without warning as over half the crowd was still talking and nobody was focused on the line. This shook me a bit and it took me a minute or so to get myself into the race mindset. Let Eric, Zachdiz and two other guys go and found myself leading the rest of the pack with Leonel from Fleet Feet. Around 800 meters in, we had put a small gap between us and the rest of the field and I was worried that if I died I'd be swallowed up by like 25 other runners. Fortunately I was able to push away that bad self talk and just focused on being in the moment. The rest of the race was pretty much just Leonel and I pushing to keep the top 4 in sight while keeping a solid gap between us and the rest of the field. Course is 2 miles out and 2 miles back with some decent rollers. Fell off of Leonel at 2.5 and just focused on trying to make sure he didn't put a ton of space on me in a short period of time. I saw Eric coming back to me too from the front group so it gave me more motivation to keep pushing. Zachdiz fell off from the top 3 at this point and was coming back to me very quickly so I spent the majority of the last mile clipping away at a 20 second gap. Was about to catch him at the end but he turned back and made sure we ran out of real-estate before I could get him lol. Overall a very mediocre time but a very good race. A lot of the people I was around/barely lost too/barely beat are very good runners with PR's in the longer distance races that far exceed mine currently, but it's nice to at least see guys of this caliber are semi-close to where I am now. Definitely a good first start and I'm glad that I was able to be competitive in a strong field. Looking forward to growing stronger and seeing where this cycle takes me!