Temps near 70 today for the race, 8:45am and somewhat humid, but nothing like St Louis. Truly conditions were ideal for me for this time of year. Did not break 40 minutes like I wanted to, but overall not a bad race for this early in the season. Got a 3 mile warm-up in and then waited for the start. We had a 2 minute warning, and then, interestingly, nothing except the starters horn. I ran a pretty solid, even effort race, but tweaked something in my upper groin, above my thigh and below my hip in the mid-section of the race. Ran through that. Had a mental struggle at the 5k mark when I realized I was running 10-15 seconds slow of breaking 40:00. I fell off the pace for a few minutes, but pulled through it by focusing on "pulling the road" and my breathing. Towards the end I tried to pick up the woman in front of me and help her catch the next woman ahead of her. The gap was about 100 meters with 1/2 a mile to go. At the 6 mile mark I had drawn her to within 15 meters, but we were probably running sub 6:00s and I just didn't have it in the tank to carry her all the way to her. My girl didn't end up catching her. At any rate, splits as follows: 6:15, 6:27, 6:40 (tough mile with some hills in it, mile marker at the top the toughest of them), 6:38, 6:27, 6:17, 1:37 for .26 (6:03s -- Garmin was off a bit, I came through the 6 mile mark at 39 flat, so really this was 1:17 for .2 6:25s). Not bad I suppose, 21 seconds/mile faster than last year and a 10k PR. | 