Bret

Peachtree - 2025 was a decent solid effort for me.   Richie who has a lake house in Alabama now, decided late last week to drive the 3 hours or so to join me and run together.   Initially I thought we'd be going on the slower-side of things when he asked what my most recent tempo-paced runs had been (7:35-7:45) and he reacted by saying, he was not sure if he'd be up to it.   The first 2.75 miles of the race are net downhill, so it is easier than the second half, and we cruised the first mile at 7:35 and he seemed fine and conversational.   Mile 2 was 7:17 and sharper downhill, and both of us were easily within ourselves - but as we started the initial few hills, Richie dropped back a bit - and I checked on him, until I could not spot him, then as if he was just biding his time, he came up to me after the 4 mile mark and urged that we should keep grinding and picking people off.   Unfortunately, I was pretty much at my limit just to maintain my pace, and so gradually he pulled away, checking back a few times until neither could spot each other in the big crowd.  As it turned out we finished within 20 seconds of each other.  He actually just simply ran a much faster final two miles than I did, and that was cool because I had a negative/to even split running the last two miles in 7:37, 7:14 and 6:43 for the last .2 miles.  

Got to catch up a bit in person though we keep in touch via text and calls quite a bit.   We will be running together in 2 months at the Sydney marathon in Australia.