overtaking haynes

Looked around at races to do over the weekend in cape cod. Found only 1 (a 5 mile race) one town from where i was staying. Was hoping to simply go under 30 minutes. Even brought my race shoes in case i did a track workout or something. racing is so much better than having to do a tempo run or track workout by yourself. I did a 1.51 mile pre race warmup and found out that the course was going to be extremely hilly. There were at least 3 hills all with at least 50ft rises and the course was out and back. There were ~400 finishers so a surprisingly large field. I went out almost with the lead pack, i was back about 15 sec after the first mile which i ran in 5:45. It was uphill so i felt pretty good about it. Got to mile 2 in 11:55. Also uphill. I was running with 2 guys in 7-9th place up the last hill before the turnaround and one guy pulled away a bit and i pulled away from the other guy. At the turnaround it was clear how close the rest of the field was and i said to myself, crap, i feel ok but not that great cause it was kind of hot, 75-80C and there were about 15 people within 30 sec of me. 2 of them were girls, and one especially fit looking girl was no more than 15 sec back. CRAP! i just kept running my own race hoping no one would try anything. i heard no footsteps which was good and then with about 2 miles to go i heard some people yell "GO EMMA" and first woman. surprisingly no one in the crowd urged her to catch me. there were a couple of cheer crowds and aid stations and i'd go by and then 5 sec later i'd hear routing for the girl. With about a mile to go she pulled even with me. i said good job but i didn't really mean it, i was not going to go down easily. usually when someone comes from behind late in the race you have no chance. i matched her speed and then pulled a second in front of her, taking the shortest lines i could. there was 1/3 of a mile left and i could see the crowd. i didn't have much left and i started feeling a little sick in the stomach with the exertion. i made the last turn and looked back as i pushed it, YES! I was pulling away. I looked back several times just to make sure because i didn't want to hurt anymore than i had to. It turned out she was only 20! Whatever, i'll take my 8th place finish and victory over all females :)

Race turned out to be 4.87 miles according to my gps. I was proud of my 6:02 pace avg which held steady with the very hilly course.

later in the day ran about 2.7 at cape cod national sea shore.

ok i'm proud of myself because i found out that the girl i beat has run a 4:55 mile which is better than my PR and has run a 16:40 5k on the track which crushed my PR.