Notes
Boom. Personal best. Training cycle went really good up until I got sick in early April. Was able to pull of some decent training after that with strong workouts that helped me feel confident about a strong pace going into this race. Each workout was planned around 6:25-630 pace.
The plan was go out in 6:25-6:30, stay relaxed on the hill, go through halfway in 1:24:30, then pick up the pace after 18 for 4ish miles. hydrogels and Maurten every 4mi..Well...
The race started on time, big field and what seemed to me deep. Lots of fast looking folks took off. Settled in behind and let them all pull away. Content with the first couple of splits, I just let things flow. Around mile 5 I caught two guys who I thought might work with me through the hill but they fell off pretty quick. By mile 8, I was alone with a two or three stragglers off the back minute or and change ahead. Got though the uphill section and could see Robert Ashby which surprised me a bit but realized he was most definitely going to negative split. And so he did disappearing on the downhill. By mile 12 I caught another guy and was alone again. He didn't stay with me. Went through half in 1:22 something. Ok at this point. Gels every 4mi no issue. Went through mile 16 and was just a 45 sec behind Hunter who I caught about 18. Thought for sure we'd run stride for stride but he tucked in happy to have a ride. As planned picked up the effort..better put just maintained the effort with 6:10 splits. Once past 20, fatigue was setting in for sure. We kept grinding. Reeling in and passing another runner at 22. Kept knocking them out. At this point I was counting the mile to go. Easy 5, just 4 shakeout "5k in 20min, simple." Kept looking impatiently for mile 25 marker. Ready to be done. Around half mile to go told Hunter to go, get the next guy 30 sec ahead of us. He made a push, but didn't get far as I finally had something to chase down but each little rose into Kingfield was painful. 200m before the turn to the ballfield and final stretch I passed hunter and pushed hard to get under 2:44. I could see the clock ticking away and knew I had it just had to hold it together in the final steps.
Knee was fine during but swollen and cranky again 8hra later.
1 Manual 13.1 mi 1:22:22 1:22:22 6:18 143 160
2 Manual 13.1 mi 1:20:51.81 2:43:13.81 6:11 151 175
3 Manual 0.13 mi 0:42.19 2:43:56