38:40 Dang! I can't believe I missed beating my PR by 2 measly seconds!!! I wish I would have been paying more attention to my overall time with a mile or so to go so I could have had the extra motivation to shave another few seconds to get the PR. As it was I was so dead running the stinking hills the last 2 miles of this race I don't know if it would have helped to realize how close I was to the PR. At any rate with this being a tough course with all the hills, even with the lower elevation I think I may have given a PR effort. I would have liked to have been more mentally tough on the worst uphill mile 5, but I felt like I at least stayed focused and didn't give up like I did last week. Also I was still feeling the effects of last weeks race so I'm mostly pleased with the effort. Miles splits: 1 - 6:00 Net downhill but with more uphill than I was expecting. Playing cat and mouse with another obviously master age runner with no shirt. Also WildBull is not far behind. Clyde, Steve and Holt are up ahead of me as expected. 2 - 5:55 Mostly downhill, I pull ahead of the no-shirt dude 3 - 6:03 Mostly down but with some unexpected uphill. Getting a pretty good lead over shirtless master dude. 4 - 6:14 Mix if down and uphill, probably net flat, starting to get really pooped and nobody around for motivation. 5 - 7:02 Ugh I hate when I can't run under 7 pace. Worst mile of the race, all uphill, getting really tired, shirtless guy is closing the gap on me. I lose focus on this mile a bit.
6 - 6:26 Mostly uphill but finishing downhill. I regain my focus after getting to the top of the last hill and increase the gap on me and shirtless guy. .2 (.17 on Garmin, 5:35 pace). I finally notice I'm really close to a PR (I had thought there was no chance earlier) so I get some motivation to speed up but I'm too little too late. I notice in my last few races I seem to still have enough kick at the end to speed up to around 5:30 pace. I need to find a way to find more mental toughness and start the kick earlier in the race. Kim had super blowout PR in the 5K finishing in 25:44 and 2nd in AD. This was all the more impressive given she has been sick all week. I certainly expect sub-25 within the next month or so. Check out her blog for more details. It was nice to meet and chat with the Dixie bloggers: Dustin, Clyde, Steve, Bill. Everyone ran well I thought, as expected Clyde won the 10K and Steve was not far behind him. Bill was not too far behind me. Dustin has been nursing an injury so wasn't racing today. Now off to SoCal for R&R!!!
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