Pretty good morning for a race. It was warm (72) and humid but at least it was overcast and only a light wind. Ran a two mile warm up before the race and felt ok. For some reason it always takes me a while to get going after a day off. Goal for today was something around 6:20 pace. So tried to not get crazy at the start and keep it reasonable. Got started cleanly and settled into a good pace. The race strung out pretty quickly so was running by myself after about a 1/2. Came through the first mile in 6:19 so was pretty much where I wanted to be. The second mile I kind of settled in and then realized that I was slowly down more so started trying to pick off some runners ahead. This helped me get back closer to pace but still slowed to a 6:25. I was catching some runners so that kept me moviated but I still was a little off from where I wanted to be. In hindsight I think I could have pushed this mile more but was holding too much back. Third mile was 6:25. Since I had held back some I was able to pick it up the last mile and passed a couple of more runners and was happy to come through in 6:13. Overall I felt OK with the race. The time was about what I expected but pretty much on par with my last race so no real improvement. I ran this same race in 2009 and was only 17 seconds slower this year so pretty good considering I am still building back up my mileage and I am 4 years older. I still have a ways to go to get ready to run a decent half in Nov but I think these shorter races are helping me get back into the racing mode and creating a foundation to build some speed on.
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