Awesome stuff! I'm so excited and surprised I did so well in the race today! Just pushed hard the whole time and came out on top, time-wise and place-wise. Hamstrings and calves are pretty dead. And I'm depressed to no end that I had to turn down $500. I am planning on doing a blow-by-blow of the race, I just have to work all night first. So tomorrow sometime, hopefully. Now, for the mile-by-mile breakdown! 1- 6:16, was sure I'd started off too fast, but just stuck with the lead ladies and hoped they'd slow down, chatted a bit with Erica Schramm.
2- 6:24, glad we'd slowed down a bit, still was doing my best to stay with a group of about 5 women nearby, was thinking how dead I was going to be for the second half if we stayed this fast for much longer (hilarious, since this was actually my slowest mile).
3- 5:47, the crazy downhill started! Just stuck with the leaders and let the hill take me along for the ride. Way fast. 4- 5:48, still downhill, lost a bit on the first few women but just decided to stay with my rhythm and make it up once it flattened out a bit. 5- 5:51, started reeling in the three ladies ahead of me, tried to cut good tangents and made up some ground when they slowed to get some water. 6- 6:00, finally the course leveled off a bit, by now I'd passed one woman and had two ahead, legs getting fatigued.
7- 6:06, at the end of this mile I barely took the lead, which I was certain would be recovered by some better conditioned marathoner, so I was running in fear the rest of the race (half at 39:22).
8- 6:14, with 5 to go I was dying and just kept pushing in hopes of not getting passed. 9- 6:18, so tired, but I was just thinking that 4 miles isn't too far to go... finish it! 10- 6:15, hanging on and pushing, sure someone was right on my tail.
11- 6:16, same as mile 10 12- 6:15, teamed up with a man nearby and helped push it for the last couple miles. So ready to be done! 13.1- 6:16+0:29, finally realized I could actually win this thing, kept pushing with dead legs and cruised into the finish. Realized right after the finish how close I was to breaking 1:20, but I'm just ecstatic to have run as fast as I did! Met Melanie and got to congratulate her on her awesome finish, plus talked to Erica a bit too. Had such great competition, it was an awesome race. Got to go home with 2 free smoothie coupons, a refund of this year's entry fee, a comp for next year and an ugly trophy! I don't even want to think about all that money I had to turn down... probably won't do this race for another 4 years, so I don't have to turn down that much money ever again. It's just too depressing. But, neglecting that issue, this race was awesome. I pushed harder than I thought I could and managed a huge (6 minute) PR and a win!
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