Bang goes the gun and along with the entire field i sprint out to get a good position for the opening hill. running down it a decent amount of people pass me going down it and im going too fast for my legs and nearly fall over. Once at the bottom of the hill i start to get into a groove. Didn't really feel the first hill but i notice this small kid passed me just before and i thought he would burn himself out but boy would i be wrong. Reaching the turn around for the first loop the course brings me to the right and i see the whole course. Till the first mile mark the course is relatively flat here and my legs felt like the good kind of jello where i can keep going at it. I reach the first mile mark and bam PRed with a 5:50 mile, only the 2nd time i broke 6 minutes. I goo up one last hill before making the turn towards the start and i thought boy do i feel slow up these hills! This whole time this little kid is running with me and the only thing i can think of is to stay ahead of him even if its a step. Going out the turn around was much the same as before but less crowded and i didn't nearly tumble over. I make it up the same small hill with my tiny racing buddy and at the turn around i made a move to beat him by going ahead and taking the inside, yes im mean but so what this kid was fast and id rather beat him with experience than lose! This point marks the hardest part of the race, nearly 2 miles in and rolling hills from this point. I feel oddly slow yet i pass people going up the rollers. At the 2 mile mark i hear 12:10, yes another PR! but i wasn't thinking about that. At that point i start kicking it in hard, its somewhat flat until about 200m to go where there is a sharp uphill into a very tight turn to the final stretch. At this point my belly is rebelling and all i can think is to not throw up and keep running, i reach the final straight away and sprint hard and trying to keep my belly in control but steps before the finish i end up dry heaving but i beat that little kid but couldn't quite catch the guy in front of me who've i been pacing off of and finished on the ground dry heaving with a time of 15:11, much better than expected. This was such a great performance to end the season and much better than the duathlon 2 weeks ago

maybe try to train a bit more before but nothing, performed 8 seconds better than expected.

walked and ate food


bad belly at the end maybe


another solid vets day race though i woulda liked breaking 19 if it was 5 kilometers lol