Being a small race, my plan was to start with the leaders and see if a win was possible. Right away a guy broke off the front and while I tried to keep him in view, it became clearly quickly that he was not going to slow down. So after a few miles I settled into my own pace around 6:30/mi, which felt surprisingly doable. Heading into the turn around the gap was huge and I considered cruising in for an easy 2nd overall, but to my surprise there were a couple guys not that far behind me, so my plans changed.

Funny thing about the 2nd half is I did not realize that my watch field was set to show overall pace, not lap pace as is the usual. This caused me to push the pace, but not see much response from the watch, which caused me to push even harder. The result was a surprisingly fast second half that I was somehow able to maintain. Getting closer to the park I realized a PR was definitely in range, and that motivated me to hold on despite it starting to hurt. When I hit the finish line my watch did not agree that we had just ran the full 13.1 miles, and since a PR was on the line, I finished out the distance myself.

Race time says 1:23:37, my watch says 1:24:25. Either way a PR that I was not expecting at all. Flat course and cool temps definitely are to thank for this one.

Nothing

Walked around and chatted with Mark while we waited for others to finish. Due to crummy weather I skipped the planned cool down jog.


My legs felt like crap two days prior at Workforce Challenge, having just come off Ragnar, so can't pretend I was in tip top shape for this one. That said, still a great performance that I was not expecting. Makes me wonder what my best half time could be in the right conditions...


Fun local race, would do it again for sure.