I'm glad I was able to maintain my pace pretty steady and have (slightly) negative splits. I increased my cadence on the steep parts, and kept things in control on the downhills. I was able to motor past a few people who overdid it.

There are some more races later in the year on this same course. It'll be fun to see how I improve over the year.

Wear a different jacket. My "running" jacket doesn't breathe well in the sleeves, and I got pretty sweaty, which is bad in cold weather. My "cycling" jacket would have done better at breathing while breaking the wind.

Other than that I'm tickled pink.

Mostly I walked around, and stretched a little. Had a snack (the sugar cookies were great!), then hung around for the awards. I didn't get any door prizes, but that's okay! :-)


The hills. Factoring in the hills, this was close to a PR for me. The only thing that will help me get faster here is experience. I paced myself well, and (mentally) handled the challenges as well as possible.


There was only one drink station, at 1.5miles, but in the cold with the hills on this short of a race, they really weren't necessary. And there was lots of free water, Gatorade, and Starbucks coffee at the start/finish shelter. A very well put-on race, as are most in this area. The course almost rated a "too hard", but my normal jogging course has a lot of short hills, so I was better prepared than I otherwise might have been.