Dan came down and met me at my home this morning. We drove up, grabbed my bib, and headed off for an easy warmup. We ran 3 easy on the river trail before heading back. I saw my friend Lynsey at the start and wished her well. Also met Lily and another blogger Carina, very cool ladies. I wanted to PR today and of course crush my time from last year. My ankle has been bugging me for about a week. Dan worked some sort of magic on it right before the start and the pain went away. Thanks Dan! The plan for the race was "push and relax", find the red line and run just under it. The first mile is uphill and there was a large group of course that went out like bullets. I passed about 20 on that first little hill where they died. Relaxed up the incline to the mile 1 marker. Mile 1 6:00. Mile 2 has some downhill in it so I tried to surge and deep breathe at the same time which worked well. Came through mile 2 in 5:40. Mile 3 has a little downhill, flat and a slight incline. Still feeling good here, split was 5:40. I hit the 5k in 17:54 which is a PR :). Mile 4 I started to struggle a bit and I think I crossed that magic line towards the end of the mile. I grabbed a cup at the water station and dumped it over my head. I slowed to a jog for about :30 to reset and focus and then continued. Mile 4 split was 6:17. Mile 5 on river bottoms road was good, I could see Dan and one other guy up ahead about 30 seconds. Split was 6:06. Up the hill and through town towards the finish. This is my neighborhood, the finish line is 3 blocks from my house. I made the mistake of looking behind me just after the mile 5 marker and saw no one. So looking back I think I kind of phoned it in at this point instead of really pushing it. Mile 6 in 6:06. Ran the last bit at 5:30 pace and had a new PR of 36:55. I won my age group (because Dan and Toni ran bandit :), thanks guys). I won 3rd local so I got $15 cash for that and won another $25 cash at the drawing. Sweet! My son ran the kids mile and did well. It was so much fun watching all the kids cross the line! It's nice to see improvements. I beat my time from last year by 2 minutes on this course. I know I can go faster I just need to stop being intimidated by it. I am running with the best guys, and it's helped a ton. Scott, Dan, Jody, Matt, and Reed are all class and great friends. I am excited for Hobble and St. George :).
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