Notes
Very good race. Official splits:
1M: 5:58
5k: 18:51
8k: 30:05
10k: 37:34
12k (finish): 44:43
(place statistics do not take masters or elite fields into account, they were scored separately)
I was running with two women from - I think - Georgetown running club for most of the race. One of them took off at 6k and finished 30 seconds ahead of me. I went head to head with the other one for the entire second half. We passed many people as we went. My opponent pulled ahead of me shortly before 10k and hammered up two long, shallow hills. I then got back into striking distance on the downhill. This race has a 1200ish meter straight shot in to the finish where you can see everything. I committed everything that I had at the beginning of the stretch and it worked. I ran down two, maybe three people - hard to remember - including the woman I had been racing back and forth with the whole time. I was expecting people to come back at me in the last 100, especially since I had to commit so early, but it never happened.
Overall one of my best races ever. I closed extremely well - 7:09 for the last 2k. I do wonder if I might have left it too late but it's hard to say, I felt almost maxed out from 2 miles on. I think I used the rolling hills between 9k and 11k very effectively, probably better than anyone around me.
Also an outstanding team day. Great races from Ian, Sean, James, and Tom. Well, Tom is a little less happy than the rest of us but he has every right to be ecstatic.