First real race in 8 months, and first longish race since the Monumental Marathon in November. My workouts before the race were showing I was in better shape, but I wasn't sure what kind of endurance I'd have. Those fears ended up being unfounded.
I went through the first 4 miles in 20:01 (4:53, 5:10, 4:59, 4:59). The next two were in 10:09 (I saw 5:02, 5:07, but think that Mile 5 might have been short). Then came the uphill of the course - we went up the old highway by Nunn's park for about 180 meters, plus the hills around Nunn's park. Mile 7 was long, so I didn't get an accurate time, but the next two miles were in 10:43, putting me at 40:53 for 8 miles.
The next miles were close to 5:00 flat - I had 5:01, 5:02. At 10 miles I saw 50:56. Up until this point I was in first place. However, little to my knowledge, a wild beast had been chasing me since Mile 5. Jake Heslington, who until recently ran for BYU, was in the race. He told me that aournd 5 miles he picked it up to 4:40-4:50. The result was that at 10 miles I got passed like I was standing still - while going 5:00 pace. It was a unique experience.
On the one hand, I was having an awesome race, going much faster than I'd ever done before. On the other - I just got passed as if 5:00 pace were a jog. Jake ended up with 1:06:36, putting 32 seconds on me over the last 5K. My next mile was 5:06, then 5:15, and 6:01 from Mile 12 to the finish. My total time was 1:07:08, 2nd place overall.
I'm definitely happy with a PR of over a minute, and guess the lesson I learned is that there is always someone out there to humble you ;-). It was good to race again - I really had missed it.
The hardest part of the race came after the finish - I ended up having to run from the finish area in the Riverwoods to my house, which is about a mile away. The adrenaline from the race was gone - but the soreness remained.
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