I had been focusing on speed work this spring and have not hit much run volume at all so my plan for this race was to race it smart and even and to put all the strength and effort into using previous experience to carry me through the course.

Started off just right pace aiming for 6:20's the whole time and had 2 go out front quick and 3 of us together for the first 5k or so. There was little changing of position for this run. One younger guy came up the first significant hill balls out just after the 5k and opened a gap but then he lost his pace before mile 5 and it was me and one other dude for almost the rest of the race. Made a seriously funny mistake at mile 5 where my extremely loud and amazingly proud cheer crew was keeping me distracted... I was looking over at them waving and saying hi and I looked up at the intersection I was approaching and though I was supposed to turn so I did... but the course went straight not right:-) The volunteer was able to yell at me and I quickly turned back and got back to my pace without getting dropped by the other runner. Anyways, everything went exactly as planned and at mile 8 I popped a gu and started picking up the effort (pace stayed about the same but effort was up) then at about mile 9.5 there was a turn after the golf course and the last significant hill and I took it hard and upped the pace and the guy who had been drafting me dropped. So after that it was just me and my effort to keep sub-6's for the final 5k downhill to the finish. The only other exciting thing from there is that I felt the 4th place finisher coming up on me as I finished going down the main hill on 96->95 so I opened up the stride and just kept pushing to hold her off...

I would have to say that this was the least painful and probably most enjoyable half I've done. I'm about 10-15 lbs of muscle mass heavier this year and I was concerned it would slow me down but it's definitely helped the overall fitness. Fitness and being more rested (due to less training volume) combined with some pacing experience all contributed to making it a super fun day:-)

Next year depending on the conditions and my fitness level I will probably shoot to PR the distance on this course by going sub 1:20.

Walk the massive hills to the cars with Dan (@silentcs42) - who PR'd by like 10 minutes!!!!


I've said it in my past RR's for Stillwater event but I really do love this venue and it's just a great event to do. I will certainly do one of the distances again next year. It's 3 years running and a family tradition now. Maybe I'll have my 7 & 8 year old boys doing the 5k in 2012:-)