I got up about 4:30 this morning to drive down and run the Freedom Run 15K. My wife and son got up early too and came along with me after we all got to bed around midnight the night before. My main goal was to come in under 59 minutes. That was the same goal I had last year and I came in at 59 flat. I felt like I have been in better shape this year up until the past 2 weeks. I have felt sluggish and had to cut my miles way back. This morning before we left I took a look at my last years mile splits for the race and figured I would shoot for those. It was a little warmer than usual at the start in the lower 60s with some cloud cover that made it a bit muggy. I can't complain about that for this time of year but it's normally about 15 deg cooler. It's the 35th year for this race and they capped it at 600 runners this year so I'm thinking there were a lot of people that didn't get in. The race started and I really didn't feel that great. 1- 6:12. The first mile has a bit more downhill and is normally a fast one. Last year I ran it in 6:06. I lost 6 sec. here but no big deal. I probably went out too fast last year. 2- 6:28. Last year I hit this one in 6:17 so I started too worry that this was going too be a long day. 3- 6:25 Last years time was 6:16 and I just don't feel like I can run any faster. Just no pop in the legs. I figured the sub 59 was not going to happen and as flat as I feel and as slow as my splits are I'll be lucky to be close to 1 hour. 4- 6:25 At least this is a little closer to last years 6:20 but I'm still bleeding seconds. I'm down 31 seconds from last year already how bad is it going to get. I'm having negative thoughts creep in like "why go through all this discomfort for what I know will be a lousy time anyway". Why not just slow down and take it easy. 5- 6:13 I had quit paying attention to my Garmin and didn't realize I had picked up the pace that much. I had dropped a kid that had run with me since mile one and passed a couple of people that I have always beat that were still running ahead of me. I didn't realize it but I had gained back 9 seconds. 6- 6:20 I gained back 1 more second here over last year. 7- 6:34 During the 7th mile you leave the TOU course [aprrox mile 14] and head up a big hill that's not quite 1/2 mile long and pretty steep. Just before the hill I noticed that my overall pace was at 6:21. Last year it was at 6:17 in the same place and with the hill between me and the finish line my overall pace had dropped 3 seconds by the end. In previous years I had lost about the same so now I'm figuring that would give me about 6:24 overall pace by the end which would be under 1 hour. With a 6:34 on this mile I gained back another 4 seconds. 8- 6:27 The first part of mile 8 is still climbing the last 3rd of the hill then it flattens out. Last year was 6:32 so chipping away a little more. This uphill mile was actually faster than mile 2 which is a downhill mile. 9- 6:05 For the rest of the race I didn't look at my pace much I just tried to run hard. The last quarter of this mile has a nice little downhill. I ran this mile the best I ever had last year at 6:14 so I was surprised to check my Garmin after the race and see that I gained that much time on this mile. 9.31- 1:41 [5:34 pace] Most of the races I run end in .1 or .2. The .3 at the end of this always seems so long. You can see the finish from about this point and it always looks a lot farther than it seems like it should be. I continued to push hard without looking at my time knowing it was possible but unlikely that I could be close to 59 min. Final chip time was 58:53 6:19/mile overall pace. I actually got back 2 seconds on my overall pace during the last 3 miles rather than loosing a few. I was very happy with the 2nd half of the race and my finish but wonder what was going on the first 4 miles. So that's a new PR for that race and I ended up 1st in age group and 15th overall.
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