I was not really sure what to expect today from this race. The last couple of weeks have not been good running weeks and I was not feeling well this week. Also, my daughters were in a wedding last night and we didn't get home from the reception until around midnight. Considering all of this I just wanted to keep the race low key and see what happen. It was an absolutely perfect day for running. Temps in the mid 40's and no wind with beautiful blue skies. Also, this is a pretty course to run with all the leaves changing colors. I felt pretty decent on the warmup and decided to go out conseratively and then see how I felt after a few miles. I got to start in the first corral so I was able to get out and establish a comfortable pace pretty quickly. I haven't ran a race since Boston this spring so the legs felt a little weird and took some time to get moving good. Part of the second mile was downhill so that helped stretch the legs out. Right after that we went back uphill and I tried to conserve energy as I was going up. After the 5th mile I was feeling pretty good and thought I should have a shot at sub 1:30 which would be good for me considering my recent training. Miles 5 through 9 I felt real good and was starting to pick up the pace. However, at 10 and 11 we went back uphill and that took quiet a bit out of me. I was able to recover from that and felt like I finished pretty good. Overall, I am very happy with the result. My training has been hit and miss all summer so no surprise that I am a few minutes off of my PR. This does give me a good idea of where I am at and what I need to do to get to where I want to be. Time to get back on a more consistent training program! Here are my splits: 1st - 6:49 2nd - 6:39 (downhill) 3rd - 7:09 (uphill) 4th- 6:48 5th - 6:40 6th - 6:46 7th - 6:46 8th - 6:34 (downhill) 9th - 6:36 10th - 6:46 11th - 7:11 (uphill) 12th - 6:55 13th - 6:43 |