AM - Dave H., Finch, James H. and I ran the Hurricane River 4 mile trail race this morning. We arrived a little early and did a 4 mile warm-up along the course, hit the bathrooms and got registered. I was kind of excited to see how my time would compare to last years. I really haven't done any races this year that I could compare with my fitness from last year. So, I have been curious about how I would do.
For the first mile of the race Dave H., Finch, Nephi and I were all together. I'm not sure what our splits were because I didn't wear the watch. As we came down onto the gravel Nephi started to drop a bit and Dave, Finch and I picked up the pace. I had been nervous during the warm-up about wearing my Type A's on the lava rock, but luckily I didn't notice the rocks at all, except as we took our first sharp turn down the hill I went wide to take the turn fast and almost slid out - luckily I caught myself. As we got on the single track I just stayed right behind Dave and Finch through about mile 2.5 - when we hit the hills I started getting eaten up a bit and fell off pretty good. I could see Finch up ahead "goating" up the hill like a teenager should but, it still bugged the heck out of me. Anyways, as we got back on the road I was able to pick the pace up a bit and had a good push to the finish. 24:42
Overall, I'm really happy with my time. Dave did really well also, considering he's been off for the last couple weeks and was watching out for his leg. Last year I did a 25:44 on the exact same course. I still struggled a bit on the hills, but I knew that's where I was going to have problems. I can't complain too much about a 15 sec increase per mile since last year. Next weekend if I can take 15 seconds off per mile from my time last year at Bryce, I'll be a pretty happy, we'll see. | 