It certainly wasn't ideal race conditions. Woke up to a torrential downpour. I ran up to the starting line (1 mile) and was surprised to see how many people were still there to run the race. Ran another mile to warm up then waited under a tent until it was time to start the race. I didn't have high expectations because I wasn't sure how well my body would respond 1 week after the marathon. I figured that I would just try to hold 6:00/mile pace throughout the run. I knew that a PR would not be in the cards today. The gun went off and we were off. A group of about 8 high school XC runners were in the front but another runner and I moved past all of them in the first 1/4 mile. Held onto second place until the mile marker when 4 of the young bucks moved past me. First mile split was 6:04. Stayed in 6th place until the second mile marker (6:02) when I passed another runner. I could really start to feel the marathon halfway through the race and my legs were starting to burn. I hung behind 4th place until there was 3/4 mile to go and I passed him. I thought that he would drop off but he stayed with me. He passed me then I passed him again. We went back and forth a couple of times until I realized that his young legs were going to outlast mine. The last 1.1 was at 5:56 pace and I finished in 18:48 and 5th place overall. Last year I ran this race in 18:54 so it was a course PR. I was a little surprised that my legs held up as well as they did. It definitely was not 100% effort but it was a good solid effort. Finished up by running 3 easy miles to cool down.
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