Slept in until 7:30am, then got myself and the family up and prepared to go to the beach for a church social. Ben and Paul were able to wakeboard with the scouts, and Ben earned his watersports merit badge by going out and back into the boat's wake three times. Awesome. After beaching for 2.5 hours I went to Lily Lew's to chill for a couple of hours until my afternoon race. I ran the course to check out the monster hill, and this hill was no joke. It is the steepest hill I have ever raced on, and it is about a 1k long. So the race is flatish for about a k, then steep uphill for about a k, then loop for a k, then steep downhill, then flat. So my watch band has been screwy and broke in my backpack, so I couldn't wear it for the race, which was a good thing, because who wants a watch's feedback "You're going super slow up this hill! Might as well walk it!". I wanted to keep in touch with Reiny, who beat me by four seconds in the last 5k. The race started out fast, and I was about 10 sec behind Reiny's pack of boys at the start of the hill. He tucked into the back of this pack of about 7, then there were two kids and an adult between me and that pack. I told myself to watch the back of the people ahead of me the whole time I go up the hill, and catch the pack by the top. So I got one kid by half way, then got another kid and the adult, then picked off about half of the pack as it broke up. Reiny was on fire though and raced the hill just right. Started the hill at the back of the pack and beat them all. I passed another adult on the flat k, then was in no man's land (an adult about 15 seconds ahead, not feeling pressure from behind) for the rest of the race. The first half of the downhill k I booked it, my legs were going so fast and I thought, "This must be what Alta Peruvian is like." I was trying to make progress on the dude ahead but he was using the hill too. I tried to keep the momentum as the hill decreased and transition to the flat well, but I am sure I would have done better if there were people around me. As I passed where I thought I was 300m from the end, I saw that it was 19:07ish on my stopwatch, so I pushed it in to get under 20. My watch said 19:41, and the official results are not up yet. I will update this race report when the official results are up to show how I faired compared to others who also did this 5k and the 5k before. 4k warm up and 6k cool down So I went 68 seconds slower than the race last week, and the average for other top runners who were men twas about 45 seconds slower, so I didn't fare so well in that comparison.
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