3C degrees and sunny at the start of the race and probably up to about 10C by the end. There was almost no wind and that really helped. I ran at what I felt was comfortably hard pace and hit the 10km mark at 48:00. From there I picked a couple of runners I thought would hold the pace through the end. We traded the lead quite a few times over the 2nd half of the course. I kept watching my km splits and kept pushing to hold my pace at around 4:50. The last 3km or so was mostly slight downhill and I really felt the pounding, but I hung on and kept chasing the guy in front of me. Although it felt like I was running faster and faster, I'm sure I was just hanging on to my previous pace.

Not a thing. I was really happy with my effort and my time - another 3 minutes off of the PR I did a month ago.

Just walked around a little to stretch and wait for my friend. My stomach was feeling tight and a little off. In retrospect, I think it was just the muscles and maybe a little gas. I grabbed a cup of hot miso soup and took my time drinking it. That was enough to hold me for the two hour drive home.


Probably my leg muscles and joints - I need to crank up my running volume to get better from here. My wind is fine.


They have their act together and did a great job. They also had 10km,5km 3km, 2km races. The shorter races were for kids and/or parent/child combo. It looks like they had a lot of different food available after the race, but I was not hungry and not in the mood to stand around in long lines.