my makeup may be flaking

Had nice weather today, figured out early on that it would be shorts weather. Warmed up with Seth and Bryce. Seth was already warm due to his 9 miles already run that morning so we went a little faster than normal, but I'm not sure how much of a difference that made.

When I finished my warmup my legs felt fatigued. I thought that I'd be able to put out a good effort but that I was not about to do anything special. I was right.

We started out pretty slow. I wasn't interested in doing that so I decided that the front pack was at least going to run my pace so I went to the front and ran 5:36 for the first mile. I stole a glance behind me and saw that I had whittled it down...Seth, Jeff, Steve, Sasha, Fritz, and Bryce were hanging on behind me. Steve went to the front and picked up the pace a little. I felt that the surges were too fast for me but I went with them anyway. Finally Jeff made a move and got a gap with Seth. Steve, Fritz and I worked our way back up to them and we passed the 3 mile point together. Then Jeff and Seth surged again and I didn't even try to match them. I was hoping that Steve and Fritz would drop off and I'd be able to catch them. They did indeed fall off the pace but Fritz was still running much faster than me and continuously pulled away. I remain a few seconds behind Steve and just couldn't pull him back the rest of the way and I think he actually pulled away more towards the end.

Mile	Split	Cumulative	Pace
1	5:36	5:36	5:36
2	5:26	11:02	5:31
3	5:30	16:32	5:31
4	5:40	22:12	5:33
5	5:43	27:55	5:35
6	5:39	33:34	5:36
7	5:40	39:15	5:36
8	5:45	45:00	5:37
9	5:42	50:42	5:38
9.32	1:44	52:26	5:38

So from the splits we can see that I slowed down by about 10-15 seconds a mile when I let the leaders go. I was kind of cramping up during the middle part of the race but it went I away in mile 6, after that fatigue took over instead. The cramping usually happens if I go out too fast, but generally it doesn't last.

I cooled down with Allie afterwards for three miles. She was worried I was going to go too fast but she was close to dropping me! I was tired, which pleased me because it made me feel like I gave it all today, unlike last week. This race was also a good sign in terms of the progress I've made recently. I was 1:25 faster than last year and I beat several people that beat me then. There were some 4-5minute swings in fact, which is a pattern I've been seeing starting in October. I also confirmed what I thought about not being 20 second worse than Jeff over 10K, that race was an aberration.

In the afternoon, I ran 5.5 miles in Liberty Park.