Another great day in Duluth! This is a fun experience I’ve been lucky to have the past couple of years. It’s good to see northern MN, be surrounded by other runners (albeit rich ones if they aren’t fast enough to get free stuff like me), and see old friends. The forecast called for lots of rain but we got another Bjorklund miracle and had a dry day yesterday and modest sprinkles during the half today (last year the smoke cleared out just in time). The rain started coming more later in the race. One thing I loved about last year was how helpful it was to run with other people and help push each other. I had talked with three guys I knew-Jack, Danny, and Tom, who all seemed to be about the same fitness as me and I thought I might have a good group. I did have a good group, though didn’t run with them much. We had a nice tail wind which was great. Perfect cloudy weather. I knew I was going to get a worse place this year due to all the guys around me, but I appreciated being able to run with them. 26th is actually better than the 30th I had estimated. Calve felt a little sore at a couple points but thankfully didn’t progress. Don’t have much to say about how the race went. Went in with low expectations and more relaxed than I usually am by a lot which usually bodes well. After some fast early miles I became just a tiny bit optimistic, and kind of like the UW 5K I ran, I got tired and worried I would fall apart a few times but was able to hang on and keep clicking the miles off somehow. I feel like if I don’t feel like that during a race I’m probably running too conservatively. It’s really helpful when the course is just straight and you can just say “if I can just make it as far as I can see then I’ll be a lot closer to the next mile marker”. Mile 8/9 is a turning point when you know you’re getting close. This time I was more prepared for the long finish (into the wind, too!)
Here were my splits: 4:58, 4:56, 4:56, 5:03, 5:06, 4:56, 5:07, 5:09, 5:00, 5:06, 5:07, 5:03, 5:36. The splits are very similar to last year, but I'll note that I ran miles 1-3 9 seconds faster than last year and the final 1.1 4 seconds faster. The middle was a wash. I got to 10K in 31:05, faster than I ran at Get in Gear! This was my fourth 1/2 and fourth time running 1:06. Idk if I’ll ever run 1:05 but I’d like to.
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