Did the XC series put on by the nashville striders today. It was free! There was a cold front that came through last night, so it was a mild 85 at the start. I was late getting off work so I only had time for 10 striders before the race. Then I jumped in my car and tried to "pre-cool" by turning the AC on full blast because I read about it recently. It would have been better if I had some ice water to pour on my head. I have 2 pairs of cross country spikes and this was my first cross country race. I tried wearing them on trails before and it wasn't great. But on the dirt and grass path they were wonderful. They really gave me a ton more traction than trainers and were super light (5.4oz). It was apparent that all of the high school teams were there and a few college runners as well. But when we went out, nobody pushed the pace much. I would have gone out faster but would have felt silly out in front of these super skinny college runners. So I stayed right behind them and slowly most of the highschoolers fell off (but not all of them, darn them). At 1.5 miles a pack of 5 took off and I stayed back with another 8 or so runners. By mile 2 the chase pack was spreading out with 3 guys in front of me but still in range. With .5 to go there was a big downhill and I passed all 3 of the guys in front of me. After that I just kept it steady and almost caught the last guy from the lead pack but didn't. It was fun that it actually felt like a race whereas most road races feel like hundreds of concurrent time trials. I ended up with an 18:12 which I was pretty happy with considering my recent times in this heat and that this was a cross country course which was flat for half and hilly the other half. And almost all of the course as grass which is slow. Also I wasn't tapered for this race. Next week is my cut back week and I will be able to taper for it. Hopefully I can go sub 18 if the weather is horrible.
So here are the things that were different from recent races that might have made the difference. 1. xc flats vs trainers 2. pre-cooling 3. less warmup 4. less humid, but hotter in the evening despite 'cold' front (they should have called it a less hot front) 5. evening race could have meant that I was more loose at the start anyway, did course 2.5 times to cool down and get some miles in
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