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Comments: I was feeling good and ready to go. There were not many people at the front of the line and the start was delayed over 30 minutes, but we finally got situated and lined up. Jeff Galloway started the horn and we were off. Immediately 2 guys went off the front. Two women, myself and a few guys formed a very loose pack. After a few miles it had thinned out and we were down to 2 guys out of sight, 1 guy 20 yards ahead, and me and a woman working together. I would lead the descents or catch up and she would lead the climbs. It was a hard, but good pace and it felt good to be racing again. After the small out and back to the winery, she started to gap me a bit and it was getting harder to pull her back. I was on target for the pace I wanted so I decided not to push harder and decided to let her go a bit. Unfortunately I did it before the headwind section and had to start it alone with no one to work with. I put in a hard half mile to reel in the guy that had been just out of reach most of the race and was able to use him for the next few sections. At this point 2 guys had come by one after another to run straight threw the front of the race, dropping me and the guy I was with into 6th and 7th place on the road. They were pretty much all gone at that point so the only spot I had was to try to hold onto 6th OA and 5th Male. I went steady on the climbs and started sacrificing myself on the downhills. I knew I was crushing my quads, but it was my best weapon and I had less than 5k to go. I finally got a gap on my third surge or so and with 2 miles to go I was running scared. i was trying to use the cheering fans to get an idea of how far off he was, but he was close enough that there was no gap in cheering between when I passed and when he did. I went all out with 1 mile to go and didn't look back until I hit the turn to the finish. I finally saw I was safe and came in to lock up 6th. I had two guys within 20 seconds, but that was good enough. It was new PR on a pretty tough course and I was trashed but happy as hell. What would you do differently?: Try to hold onto the girl? Not sure how that would have gone.  Post race
Warm down: Went back out to the final turn to cheer on the other runners. Jeff and Kari finished in great times and then we had some bottles of wine with their friends. So much fun! What limited your ability to perform faster: nothing. Event comments: Other than the start, this could be a great race. Great course. Cool post race atmosphere. Mostly well run. If you are flexible with the start, I recommend it. Last updated: 2012-06-11 12:00 AM
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United States
Destination Races
Sunny
Overall Rank = 6/2232
Age Group = M35-39
Age Group Rank = 1/128
Woke up ~4am and drove to Ashburn to carpool with Jeff/Kari/Amy. We drove to the start in no time, but when we got there they were turning cars away at the entrance to mountain road. There were horror stories of the race start the previous year and although they appeared to be better prepared this time, heavy rains the night before made the closer lots dicey.
So we were instructed to go park 4.5 miles away and take the shuttle. It wasn't that big of a deal, but it was pretty frustrating when we finally got back to the race site on the shuttle only to see people being let into the parking area there.
We took care of the bag drop, bathrooms, and anything else, and then headed for the start. It was Jeff's first half and Kari's first race of any kind so I was very excited for them. I also decided to race it myself so I was anxious and excited as well.
Ran ~1/4 mile to pee in the woods one last time before the start.