Bret

Bit of a disappointment this morning - felt "off" by the second mile on a very humid (96%) warm and windy day.  Knew my planned pace of 6:24 was not going to happen after about the third mile  when I was right at 6:27 pace through 5k; and with a 6:47 mile at 4th, I just decided to convert this race into a tempo run at slightly faster than marathon pace.  I did that through mile 7 (avg'd 6:44) and then shut it down and basically did a cool down for the last two miles. 

Richie paced our mutual friend Steve - who wanted to average 7 min pace - and did well thrugh 6 miles but had to dial it back for the last three miles and ended up running about 1:10. 

Saw my friend Ken during the race as he paced his neighbor through at just over 8 min pace and we gathered at Four Green Fields after the race to catch up.

Not sure what to make of my performance this morning - my training has been good to date and though I felt a bit fatigued late in the week, I did not expect it to have that much of an effect.  Guess I will just chalk it up to having an off day and look forward to the next race.

 ** As a post script to this - in looking at the age group results  (if accurate) - had I finished out the last 2 miles on pace - I may have ended up in the top 5 - with no runners under 1 hour for this age division; which is perhaps an indication of how the conditions seemed to have had an effect quite a few.