Today was the Freedom Run 10K in Provo. I've done this race probably 10-12 times over the years, at least. It's a fun thing. And my wife ran the 5K, so that was fun, too. I also had two brothers and two sisters who ran. Last year I ran 43:54, and I was fairly disappointed with that time. I also felt like I crashed and burned toward the end, so I was nervous about that happening today. So I went out faster than last year but was conservative the first few miles. Once I started the uphills and was feeling strong still, I pushed the pace. And I finished with a sprint at the end. So maybe I was too conservative. Maybe not though. In the first mile, I could still see the leaders. That was a surprise. Anyway, during the race, I kept thinking I could run faster without having to work too much harder, but I felt like my pace was good at the time, so I stayed with it. We had to run around all the 5K runners again, but this time I was mentally prepared for that. I thoroughly enjoyed the race and smiled during a lot of it. I just found joy in being able to do it and knowing that I was running a lot faster than the year before. In fact, my time was 39:09, which was an improvement of 4:45 over last year. My splits: 6:22 6:14 6:10 6:20 6:20 6:30 (big uphill) ?? (last 0.2) | 