overtaking haynes

was stressed out about performing on my home turf and almost decided not to race the night before. woke up tired and groggy. got to the race and did a pre race warmup across the field for about 1.2 miles total. parking lot already full and there looked like at least 5 people who were skinnier than me and looked fast. kristin came with me and i told her i'd probably only finish 10th. even in my trail racing shoes during warmup i could barely muster a 9 min mile and some guy caught me going to pee across the field. it was pretty hot and what made matters worse is that one guy looked super fast.... i would notice later at the starting line that he had a syracuse cross country tatoo on his leg. There was a 52 yr old who has beaten me in the last yr although i beat him this year at a race and also another young 50 something who has beaten me in a half marathon and 5k in the past yr. let's say crushed me. i really wasn't feeling like this was going to be a good day. anyways, we started on the flat carriage road for half a mile...the course map was posted on line so i knew what i was getting into. in the first 1/2 mile the syracuse runner put on what seemed like 20 sec. i said to the 52 yr old running with me "wow" and he told me the guy could run a 31min 10k on the road. the course turned onto a technical mtn bike trail and the 52 yr old sprinted down the hill right before it to be leading into the single track. i immediately passed him because i was far superior on the technical terrain and somehow gained on the syracuse runner. i pulled to within 10 sec at the 1.5 mile mark. he sprinted away though going probably 4:30 pace on a carriage road and i didn't see him at the turn off to the 5k and 10k course. I was feeling pretty good and it helped knowing to keep pushing on uphills when i knew were the resting points were. i had run so many times on these trails that i knew all the lines. there was this horrible section that went over underground wires. literally 4 uphills and downhills of 100ft all in a row over rocky terrain with it being so steep you couldn't really run down it. I thought i would see the runner up front. i didn't and was kind of in shock how i could see 2 mins ahead. i was determined not to look back to see where the other runners were. By mile 4.5 i was getting very tired but kept pushing. skipping to the end...the guy in front took a wrong turn onto the 5k course and got disqualified. so i actually won! my first victory ever.  38 starters including women but who cares. 38 runners in the 5k who i was ahead of too. what's even better is my time is listed as 47:25 online when i ran something like 48:05. The next fastest runner was only 49:18. He ran 2:52 at Boston last year. Cooled down 1.1 miles had horrible blisters from racing shoes as usual.