7:30 am race in downtown Lexington, KY. I really enjoy this race in my old home town - Lexington, KY. Its pretty competitive, but, the 3:30 am wake up time required to drive down morning of the race is not ideal, but, totally worth it. 66 deg. and very humid. Met up with Nathan in a parking lot downtown before the race and we go to find a couple other buddies who have graciously picked up our packets the night before. Great to see these guys and totally geek about running stuff.
WU with some jogging and strides close to start line. The start is nuts. A lot of high schoolers and younger guys take off (along with the legit folks) at about 5:20 pace for the first half mile. Its hard to tell where I actually stand, but, I guess about 50th. Through mile 1 right around where I want to be and feel fine - 5:45. The second mile is a sneaky uphill and is followed by the always difficult and less subtle uphill of mile 3 - 5:52, and 6:07. I am slowly picking off people, still, and hit the downhill fourth with a decent effort - 5:45. I see that I am in about 20th at the turn around, but, know that mile five is coming up and is the slowest of the race (the worst hills of the race). A big effort is required for a 6:01 on this mile, leaving me a bit gassed for the net downhill last mile and finish. The familiar sick stomach strikes again. My heart rate was gets high for the uphill battle of mile 5 and now my stomach gives me fits the rest of the way. Hang on to 5:43 for mile 6 and 1:19 for 0.24 partial, only to be blown by in the last 100m by a young gun. 10k - 36:30, 22nd place. Course PR
Hung around finish shute chatted with some other familiar faces. Long recovery run with Nathan and Tim, running the course. Hang around for awards and get a cool star shaped trophy for winning AG. Cool street festival in downtown for fourth of July. Those guys took off and I went back to car grab handheld and run some more miles.
Tour de Lexington - run around UK campus over to Arboretum. Lots of construction on campus - looks like a major facelift is well under way on campus dorms and buildings. Its about 3 miles from downtown to Arboretum (thru campus) Arboretum is a 2 mile paved loop with some nice scenery and apparently lots of people. I had found a strava segment for the loop CCW and thought I'd give it a crack. Made about a mile behind pace, and gave up on that idea. Still, nice to run a couple loops and people watch. Getting hot! Jogged back thru campus to downtown festival.
12.34mi. - 1:42:19
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