So I came to this race with one objective - engage the overdrive again. It has been really hard to find after that first time, but I had hopes. I lined up at the front on the slightly chilly day and we were off! And I do mean We, as it seemed like everybody in the whole race was doing a 4:30 pace to the west. I just hung in there and kept going. A single person jumped out front, folled by a giant pack which I was a part of. About .6 miles in my first mile is free superpower started to gutter out as usual and the pack started to pull away. So it was time to try for the overdrive. Will all the concentration I had I pushed at the back of my head and heart and boom! It kicked in. With the heart rate skyrocketing, just a few seconds of lactic clearing and I was right up in the pack again, right next to captain elbows AKA Benjamin who was looking fine except lacking about ten sandwiches. And now I felt like I wanted to go around the pack, like they were going too slow. I resisted the urge though since this was a new level. Without warning the 1 mile mark flew by and I checked my watch. 5:07. I was so shocked I lost concentration and fell out of overdrive back to normal levels. I tried mightily to regain it but it was to no avail, the rest of the race was spent with a normal clearing profile, struggling and sometimes succeeding to stay under 6 flat. Sasha passed me in mile 3 with his latest prodigy, looks like he has added about 5 inches of circumference to his quads. I guess that's what happens when you run 80 mostly slow miles per week :) All I can say is that I am going to spend a lot of time working on this new level this winter and see if I can stay in it with something less than every bit of concentration I have. About 18th overall, they haven't posted results yet so that is a guess. Toni may have pushed me into the 20s, hepassed me with 10 yards to go racing somebody else who he beat as well.
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