Won my 3rd race in as many tries this year. Pretty good way to start off the year. However, that being said, I am disappointed with my time here today. I wanted the course record (17:16)...however, upon finishing, a few people thought the course was long and the guy who got 2nd said his garmin read 3.2..thus adding nearly 30-35 seconds to the run. That being said, the course record is a little deceiving...since the course appears a tad long, it would seem that 17:16 was actually around 16:50 or so. Now to the actual race. I felt good at the start, had a great warmup. Hit my first mile in 5:30, but once again, this mile marker seemed long and I felt like I was in the 5:20-5:25 range. 2nd mile was 5:50, probably more accurate. 3rd mile: 5:58, definitely long as I was pushing the whole way. Closed the final .1 in 36 so probably accurate. All told I won the race by 1 second. I passed the leader at the 2 mile mark and he mounted 3 surges to try to pass me during the closing mile and I covered it each time. It hurt to do so, but felt great when he would lose ground and then have to mount another surge. This battle definitely helped me mentally because I know I can win this kind of race and I even had a nice kick to fight off a possible 4th surge at the finish. 17:56 doesn't look real fast, but I feel the course was long. The whole race I felt like I was pushing it and thought for sure I was in the 17:10s to 17:20s at least. Kind of disappointing to see 17:56, but at the same time, I know I have faster stuff in me cuz like I said, course was probably long and I know the effort I gave was better than my time. Overall, great event, awesome participants (about 100-150 of them). I will definitely come back to this one..and next time I will get the course record...however long it actually is.
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