Notes
My 7th race in the series and third overall win this year. It's also a new PR at 16:53 which I'm pretty stoked about considering I ran 116+ miles in the last 7 days. The weather was 6 degrees cooler this week than last week and it was "only" 92F but humidity was 50% which made the dew point worse at 70F vs. last week's 66F. So I'd say the weather sucked about equally both days and today we also had a strong 7mph south wind to deal with so I'm even more pleased with my shiny new PR.
My biggest competition showed up so I knew that if I wanted to beat him I had to run low 17s at the very least, he's been running 17:10s all summer long. After the start we took off and while I was in the lead for the first 100 yards he quickly took over and passed me as if I was at a stand still. My pace didn't seem too slow for me so I wasn't sure what was going on. Combine that with the strong headwind we were fighting and I thought he must have been out of his mind or he'd been sandbagging it all summer long. I looked at my watch and the first quarter was 78 seconds. We were definitely not going slow and he was already a couple of seconds ahead of me. I figured that he'd either kick my ass in a big way today or he'll fade and I'll reel him in like I did last week.
Went through the first mile in 5:26 which was faster than last week so I though I just might be able to hang on and snag another PR. I did not care about the win I was just concentrating running even pace. The wind was hard so the 5:26 today was a lot harder than the 5:32 opening mile last week. By the turnaround he had at least 10-12 secons on me but I felt like I finally started to run the tides and started getting closer and closer to him. It was still a long shot but I thought I might still stand a chance.
At mile 2 I went through sub-11 at 10:59 which was the same as last week so I knew that if I could hang on and push it a bit with the help of the tailwind on the way back I could still get a PR. I gradually stepped on the gas and inched closer and closer to the leader who looked back at which point I knew he was done. I just had to catch him. I pushed really hard at 2.5 miles, I usually don't find this gear until later but I knew that I needed to go then and there otherwise I would not catch him. My pace was 5:10 and constantly got faster and faster. I finally caught him with about a third of a mile go and I didn't just catch him I buried him. I went past him as if he was at a stand still and put 10+ seconds on him in the last quarter. I never looked back, that always shows a sign of weaknes which I had none. It was an amazing feeling.
Third mile was the fastest at 5:23/mile with the second half at 5:15 pace. My final 0.1 mile wasn't as strong as last week but the clock at the finish wasn't working so I didn't have a goal to run towards, once I saw that my third mile was a 5:23 I knew that I would PR so I "cruised" it in at 4:51 pace.
The sad part is that I won't be able to run the last 3 of the races in the series which means he'll probably beat me in the points and win the overall title this year. I'm not too bummed out about it though I still ran a really nice series and beat last year's PR time by 31 seconds. I'll run my last one on Saturday in the morning, I don't think I'll PR even though the weather will be about 20 degrees cooler.