Well another race down for the WRC. Next race is the Half Marathon on April 7th. It will be good to have a month to get some solid miles in and build some endurance on the long run. For this race it is by far the hardest race out of the whole Circuit. Total vertical gain is over 900 feet and total over 1900 feet of total elevation change. Warmed up for 5 miles was planning from the beginning to use this one as a solid long tempo run. As I was warming up my GPS died on me so I was scrambling to get any type of watch to run the race with. So thanks to Mark from StrideRacing who donated his watch to me for the race. Mile spits my be off a little because it is coming from memory since I don't have Mark's watch with me. First mile I wanted to just get into a rhythm and stay conservative, I think we hit 5:26 the first mile and was about 11 seconds slower than the 10k. I thought for sure with a slower mile I would be back a little bit from the lead guys but was in first. Second mile was 5:01.19 seconds slower than the 10K by now it was me and Albert Wint and Riley. For me this is where the race started coming together and the legs started feeling good. Mile 3 and 4 were 5:10 and 5:30 faster than the 10K. By the time I hit mile 4 one of my buddies was out on the course said that I opened a huge gap on the other 2 guys so that was good to here. Mile 5 was 6:05. Again faster than the 10K. I didnt catch my 6 mile split but I know at 10k I had a faster split for the 10 mile course by 15 to almost 20 seconds. mile 7 was the big one this is where you get most of the climbing I hit a 6:40 mile and was glad that the majority of the hills were over. mile 8 was 5:01, steep down from all the climbing and mile 9 was mostly down with a small climb in the middle managed a 5:25 and again the last mile not sure what the split was but overall time was 56:51 about a 5:40 pace
For me that was almost a minute PR on the course. Ended up putting another minute on Albert for the overall lead for the Circuit. On a side note this is the second time I have ran without a GPS in a race and I have 2 PRs so I am thinking that the garmin is holding me back a little. So I might be done with it at least for races, just sayin. Again glad for the overall result got 17 miles on the legs today which felt more like 20+ with the hills. I am really glad how training is going. My body has responded well with all the workouts that I have thrown at it. Solid week of workouts about 25 miles of workouts on the legs, and feel great. Well the hills are done and on to the Half, hopefully I can knock down a PR on that course also!!
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