my makeup may be flaking

AM 9.4

PM Frisbee

AM 10.6

PM Frisbee +1.4

Well, I wanted to pull out of this race as recently as a week ok, but I decided to give it a go anyway and decided to give myself a chance at a good time with an agressive taper.  I hadn't been able to maintain a steady pace (any steady pace) for about two weeks so I thought the uphill followed by a downhill might actually agree with my legs. Adam gave me a ride and we picked up Eric at the finish before driving up to the start. Did a two mile warmup and felt hungry, whoops! Also needed to go to the bathroom when the gun went off, but that went away initially.

To begin with there was a pack of four of us chasing Grant Rotunda (I think) who was running as part of a relay.I felt kind of bad for him that he just had to sit out there while we used him as a rabbit. Mile 1 was 6:43 and felt a little harder than that, which is still not very hard, but I should have been able to push the pace more than I did. One of the four quickly dropped off as we went through the second mile in 6:41 despite the significant uphill. Towards the end of the second mile, I was dropped also, but I surged and caught back up as we went through 3 miles in (19:53) 6:28. My legs cramped up a bit, but not too badly and I decided that I would just let the two leader (Adam and other mystery guy go), they put a big gap on me as I did mile 4 in 6:58 to crest the hill.

Coming by the first exchnage I realized I had to go the bathroom and as soon as the downhill started I realized that I really needed to go the bathroom.  I ran both mile 5 and 6 in 5:29 and saw that Adam was maintaining a healthy lead. I really wanted to try to push and catch him but I knew I had to go. During mile 7 I stopped for 1 minute in a bathroom and that mile was still 6:30. I also still was in third place. However mile 8 was just 5:49 as I still needed to go to the bathroom so I stopped again in the 9th mile and this time I got passed up by the second relay team.  I caught and passed the runner during the 9th mile and ran 6:24 despite another 1 minute break. I'd really been flying down the hill for a while now and I was starting to get tired and I was already demoralized as I knew my time wouldn't be good. I got some motivation during the 10th mile as the relay handed off behind me and their third runner immediately surged to catch me. He got me just as I had finished running my 10th mile in 5:47. I got really annoyed that he would surge to catch me just as I was starting to tire. So I threw down 10:46 for the next two miles (I missed mile 11) and 16:40 for the last 5k.

Subtracting off the 2 minutes of bathroom time I ran the last 9.1 miles in 50:08 which is 5:30 mile pace. So, considering everything, I think I'm still on track for my goals this year.