WRC 10K One more race down in the brutal hills of Ogden. Woke up this morning feeling really good. Had a powerbar for breakfast and some IronMan Perform, settled perfect. Got to the Dee a little after seven and met up with Riley Cook for a 3 mile warm up with 4X100 meter strides . For the last mile on the warm we ran mile 5-6 on the course. This section of the course is probably the hardest due to the fact that it is all up hill. Not only was it up hill, we had a serious head wind, was not going to be fun at all today. Okay so the first mile of the race the plan was to take it easy up the first hill and slowly get into the groove and have a good race. Well thats not what happened, Albert Wint came blowing past me up the hill and was pushing the down hill hard. I think for the majority of the downhill we around 4:30 to 4:45 pace. My first mile was 5:15 and Albert had at least a 5 second lead. Mile 2 was the same steep and gradual downhill, Albert still was pushing the pace. I knew I needed to stay relaxed and keep him in sight, by mile 2 was about 2 seconds back and hit a 4:42 second mile. There is a section of the course where it goes from straight down to a gradual up and that is where I took the lead. Talking to Albert afterwards he said he went out way to hard and plans to race a little different in the 10 miler. My goal was to hit the downhill as hard as I could the next mile to try to get a good gap before the uphill section. By mile 3 I had a 15 second lead and hit a 5:20 mile. At the 5K I was 15:42, now the race gets hard the last 5K of the course is all up hill until you hit the mile 6 marker. The next 2 miles just wanted to average under 6 min pace mile 4 was 5:40 and mile 5 was 6:10. Last mile was the worst but the great thing was that the wind had died out and was able to maintain an okay pace up the last hill. Mile 6 was 6:13. For the last .25 I hit a 70 for the split. Great race for me I thought I was in the best shape of my life in 2010 when I last won this race and my time was 35:02. So great to see that I hit a 30 second PR for this course. Things are looking up for the upcoming year if I can stay healthy!!
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