I seeded myself on about the second row, based on last years results I would be around top 10 so that seemed fair. It was a combined 10k/15k start but the course was the same for the first 7k. Gun went off and I could immediately make the distinction between the runners who I would not see again and those who I would overtake eventually. My goal was to go sub 40 and I really wanted to start out slow. To that end I was looking at my pace a bit too much in the first part, and in any case it didn't help as the first two km markers were both under 4 minutes, albeit only a couple of seconds. I didn't feel as if I'd overcooked it though and I was trying to draft a bit off of others (which is quite comical as I'm 6'8" tall). When we entered the field part of the course there was a cross wind and we were actually running in an echelon, I kid you not. Mentally it was good to hang with these cats as they prevented my from going out too fast, but at about 4k they accelerated a bit and I let them go. Passed the 5km clock at the turnaround and it read 20:18 even though according to my watch I was safely under 20 mins. At this point I was expecting some more favorable conditions but I first had to negotiate the cross wind in the other direction. Then most of the runners went right for the 15km race and I went left to the 10k remainder. About 1k later I ran into the 5k competitors who had started 10 minutes after us. So these were the slower runners, taking about 30 minutes for their 5k. It was good mentally to be able to blow by them, I could not believe how much energy I had left, it was ridiculous. My last km was in about 3:45ish, a pace I struggled with in training to repeat a couple of times. Crossed the line and was not even that tired, so I kind of thought that I could have gone faster.

If I was an experienced runner I would have gone out faster, and probably been able to go sub 39.

General newbness.