I had hoped for top 10, but this field was way too deep. Amazing race. I saw everybody at the start, but only wanted to do 1 or so for warmup so I left them to it and adjusted the Spingblades so there would be no rubbing on the top of the feet. I did find the perfect comfort zone, so that was cool. I was worried about cutting people up at the start so I blew out the beginning as quick as I could, then hung with Zak and Jacob for the first half mile so I could get some more great running pictures of me for Facebook. Thanks for the photo op guys :) Even with the big jumpback in the start position I blew past the mile 1 marker at 4:45, looked like the secret weapon was putting in an appearance. But then my thingy didn't dingy until 5:02 so I wasn't sure. Whatever. I was still feeling pretty fresh so I pounded mile 2 decently hard for a 5:27. But now I am 4 seconds behind last year. I lost another 8 seconds over the next four miles, 5:35,5:38,5:40,5:45 and one second on the flat seventh mile, 5:59. It was there that Scott passed me showing Brandon how to use his new superpowers. They invited me along but I was maxed. Scott stopped and tied his shoe and passed me again at mile 9, just so he could be sure to be in front mentally :) Miles 8-11 were 5:48, 6:04, 6:00, and 6:09 - 1,4,4,and 5 seconds slower than last year. The final miles were at a 6:12 pace, but I made up significant ground from last year's last mile. This year's GPS is about 0.6% slower to grab miles than last year's - I have noticed this on all my workouts. That was good for about 2 seconds per mile. The heat was somewhat significant, but probably only grabbed 6 or 7 seconds during the last part of the race. The move of the start line was good for at least 20, that was over 100 meters back. Overall I think I actually did a little better or just the same as last year, so not too bad. The secret weapon, however, does not do well on downhills. It is magnificent on uphills and good on flats, especially when you are accelerating strongly (even downhill for that). However, I have essentially no muscle damage from the race because of the shock absorbing it gave me so now I am not sure if I should bring it to the calf crusher (Nebo) or not. Probably not St George, the added weight of the shoes would become a definite drag by mile 16. I totally blew out masters by like 6.5 minutes, kind of surprising. But I know I have fondled my last HCH masters plaque, unless Scott takes up hang gliding or something.
We had a huge group cooldown on the reservoir loop afterwords, got the awards and bailed. Fun day!
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