this was supposed to be 15 min easy pace, 15 min tempo pace, 5 min easy pace, 15 min tempo pace and easy pace to finish. i had done the soapstone segment in my easy run on friday, so i felt it would be a waste of energy to try to tempo pace up soapstone. instead, i easy paced the first 10 minutes and began my tempo pace as i turned onto glade. i kept that up until the hills started on soapstone (about 10 min total of tempo). i hit my lap timer at that point and eased up. i had just passed 2 woman running a decent pace at the end of my tempo pace. they repassed me again about 2 minutes into the easy pace segment. i kept the easy pace up for the entire length of soapstone and a little bit on sunrise valley (total about 15 minutes). i decided to get it going again for my second tempo interval at the light of wiehle and sunrise. i passed those same two girls within about 90 seconds and kept flying. this tempo pace i kept up for about 14 minutes. the next easy interval started right after the high school around mile 6.2 miles. after about 4-5 minutes, those two girls passed me again. they were still keeping a nice pace. at mile 6.7ish, it was really hard to not keep going with them, but i had kept telling myself to ease up. this is a training run. my plan was to keep it easy, keep them in sight and to kick it in again at mile 8. i had been able to pass them so quickly into my tempo intervals before and i was confident i could do it again. it was REALLY hard to restrain, but i did a decent job. just before 8 miles, there was a water stop, i blew past it to save time and hit the lap timer. it's on. this interval started on a slight uphill. i kept it easy to save energy for when it mattered, but was still gaining on them. we turned the corner to soapstone again, this time heading down hill. i kept closing the gap and caught them at mile ~8.5 on a pretty big downhill. i lined up side by side with the chick in the front and just sat there. i told myself there was no sense in kicking it up on a downhill. gravity was helping all of us and there wasn't going to be a good use of energy to try to pull away here. just before mile 9, i was running neck and neck with one of the girls and she asked me whether we had to go around a certain cone. it seemed like a pretty unimportant question, and i wonder now if she was trying to see what shape i was when i answered. bad news for her. i was fine. we made the left turn onto ridge heights and i decided to turn it on hard to try to drop them fast and keep them from chasing. it worked! within ~ 40 seconds, I couldn't even hear them anymore. i didn't want to turn and look, but i was pretty sure they weren't there anymore. last mile was 6:24 pace. awesome!
it was freaking ubelievable to have run a solid 6.2 miles, know i could let two great runners go for almost 2 more miles, and have the kick to catch them fast and pass them. unbelievable. it's also unbelievable that within the 2 weeks of this last vdot, that running sub 7s has suddenly became not only possible, but pretty easy. ubelievable. i am so stoked about where my running is. so freaking stoked.
i hope that i didn't damage myself too much for national next weekend, but even if i run 5-10 minutes slower as a result, it might have been worth it. this was such a confidence building run. to have run "easily" for ~ 30+minutes of the whole and to PR by 4 minutes!? really really happy.

absolutely nothing. i can't help but wonder what i could have done if i "raced" the whole thing.

for a small race, this was extremely awesome. they had women sized shirts. i got the small i requested. race results were up withing a few hours!!! great awards! nice nice nice. i'll do this again if it fits in my schedule.