ok...got 4 1/2 hours sleep for this. Had to attend a wedding, which went much later than I anticipated...which made me mad. Anyway, getting there was a huge clusterf#$%. Finally got to the race, found my place between the 1:50 and 1:40 pace group and had 2 minutes to spare!

I decided for this race, since it was training, that I was going to take some chances...I started out at a moderate pace-8:10 for first mile. The next few miles I kept it around 8:00, feeling pretty good. My strategy was to find someone that looked like they were doing 8's and jump in behind them...run for a bit, then when they slowed down find my next helper. Miles 6 and 7 I pushed it a bit harder..but felt this was too fast..running low on steam. I reeled i tback in a bit, started to fade around mile 11...took my last bit of infinit and kept my eye on my watch, trying to get that 1:45...ended up with 1:45:07 Chip time...a minute and some change better than my best time here...

I realized later I did not put enough calories in my little bottle....out of practice!! I was about 100 or so short and can now see I could have used them...but just wasnt thinking on the course. I stayed pretty focused though, and never, ever walked - only slowed a bit to grab a water at each station. I was uncomfortable but feel like with enough sleep, proper calories and a better few days of race prep, I could probably knock a few more minutes off that time. Learned a little about myself today and found some of my determination and strength that has been missing from my training and racing. My splits were mostly even...a few blips on the radar, but otherwise pretty consistent.

Very happy with my high quality training day :)