39:37 (new PR) and 38th place male (40th overall I think).
After a
warm up, I squeezed into the crowd near the front and happened to find a
great spot with a bunch of friends from the Striders. Got off to a
good start, amazed at how many people were running at that pace. First
mile felt great, and I was feeling like I was on a roll, but noticed my
shoe was untied, so had to stop to take care of that. Got right back on
pace and had a great third mile. Second half started to get difficult.
Last mile starts out with a hill which really slowed me down at first
but was able to pick it back up and finish strong.
Splits: 6:12, 6:22,
6:16,6:27,6:30,6:21 0.25@5:56
For miles 4 and 5 I felt like I was about to blow up and really slow down, but looking back now it wasn't that drastic. At the start of the 6th mile is the biggest hill of the course (fairly long but not that high), my pace slowed even more, but once past the hill was able to get a pretty decent last mile.
Saw my sports doctor, Dr. Cottrell who said hi to me while we were
running but I was a little slow on recognizing him until we were apart.
Last year he outkicked me at the end so I was on the lookout for him
this time!
Before the race I warmed up with a little over two miles of mainly easy running and a few strides right before the race started.
