Notes
DECE
71 o/a, 6th GBTC
Well I’ve run faster than this over 8k XC precisely 4 times (my last four races of SR year), and that was 5 years ago, these were less than ideal conditions, so I get to be excited about this one. Was out way too fast (as expected) but I don’t have the stones to go out any slower at this race, even at 5:17 I felt like I was in danger of losing the whole field. Was breathing heavy / not feeling great the first 400 or so, but did a good job of calming myself down, relaxing, and then just following Andy for the next 3 miles or so as he moved up. Plan was to stay relaxed through 3k and then hit the second half of the race hard, I felt good but maybe fell asleep a bit on the first wilderness loop. When I got to the “home straight” ran hard through 5k and saw 17:1x and was sad about how badly I sucked in HS. Then did some mental math and realized that I only need 5:40 pace or so to break 28 and even though there was a lot of tough course left I felt well up to the task. Was able to really push myself the final 3k and felt like I was running hard even though it didn’t feel that fast... hearing Caleb give a 4 mile split + catching Derek Noland at the bottom of bear cage pretty much got me through to the end. He was going HAM the final 200m and I had a pretty diesel JV kick to edge him out.
Really happy with the time, the way I felt throughout the race, and the overall effort. 2-2 for feeling GOOD about XC races this fall, that is not typical, no not at all. Hopefully can keep it rolling at USATFNE in two(?) weeks - previous best of 34:25 in 2016 (after running 28:16 at Mayor’s Cup) bring out the Jack Daniels!