Race pays pretty well so you get a lot of All Americans and general Elite studs and studettes that show up for this thing. Knowing that, I wasn't getting anywhere near the front of the line. Lined up about 4 or 5 rows back next to my Team Zoot teammate David. David is wicked fast so my plan was to just try and stay on his heels the entire way and see what happens.

Off the gun we slowly made our way around a few other runners and then just sat in on our pace climbing out of the start. Once we made the left onto McDowell Mountain Road I tried to open the legs up a little and bank some time. We were running around 5:20s and my engine wanted to rev higher but my legs just couldn't go any faster. Big week of training and the resulting load of fatigue was certainly present. That frustration of plopping a race in the middle of a big training build, knowing you are capable of more. Anyway, we were still having fun!

Falling out of the park David was already started to put some time into me and i just accepted the fact that I was going to get my butt handed to me. Next thing I know I'm running fairly alone, with a pack of 6 or 7 roughly 50 yards in front of me. Did I mention the wind? Gusty, decently stiff and in our face then entire race. I kept wishing I could reel the pack in front of me in so I could get some draft relief but it wasn't in the legs to go faster.

Pretty uneventful for the rest of the race. Once the road leveled a bit and turned into the rollers around mile 4 I kept looking at my HR and couldn't believe how low it was. Curse there was so much more speed there that I just couldn't tap into. Climbing the rollers was a good gut check on how I was feeling and hitting the hill at mile 7 was like running into a semi truck. BAM, life sucked out! The only glorious part was a runner that came up beside me, gave me a "good job" and then the two of us pushed up the hill together. Nice having a mate to help you out. As we were closing in on the crest I put a bit more effort out and pulled away from him.

Cruised from then on into the finish. The final climb wasn't terribly bad and came across the line a little disappointed that I didn't run closer to 57 flat but still satisfied.

Not much I could considering where in the calendar this race fell this year. Awesome race though and if I'm not running Boston next year again then I'm definitely tapering a bit for this thing and seeing what kind of time we can post.

Kryptonite


Way fun race! We (Team Zoot Southwest) entered the mixed open team category where the top three times on your team (one must be female) are calculated and the overall winning team then wins the weight of one of their team members in beer. When the dust settled we fell into 2nd place next to our friends at One Multisport by a mere three seconds! Oh well, I gave up drinking beer until after Boston anyway.