This race is a lot of fun. It got a good crowd with lots of people in costume. It was 31F with just enough snow to seem "seasonal."

I went with several women from my team, including some juniors, which made it even more fun.

As with any big race, the start was slow and jammed up. However, with the downhill start and pushing myself, I was 6:50 for the first mile. In the middle of the race, I let up my attention and inadvertently fell back on too comfortable of a pace, leaving me at 22:00 at the 3-mile mark. I pushed pretty well up the hill in the last 1/2 mile, passing some, including at least one woman. Between this and Cheshire, I'm starting to think that hill finishes are to my advantage, since I seem to pass people.

Overall, I made the same mistake I did in the last races, which was to let up on my attention toward the middle and fall back into a moderately-hard LT type pace rather than staying up there at the edge like I should be.

I was initially posted as 3rd in AG and 10th overall women, but results were later modified as some people weren't recorded. The time and finish place have been altered multiple time. I'm listed 4th in AG and 13th out of 498 women. It's hard to get perspective during a big race like this, since the women in the front 10-20% tend to be thinly dispersed among the men.


Not let up in the middle.