After much trepidation about this race regarding the time on a Sunday morning and needing to get to church by 10 am - I went ahead with it on a tight schedule.
Not a spectacular time - though faster than I did this race two years ago - this was a very good competitive effort for me today. The conditions which were not terrible - low 60's with 85% humidity and windy just did not permit my heartrate to maintain the 6:30 pace or better pace I had hoped to run today.
I made a conscious choice to keep my heart rate below AT for at least the first 8 miles - so that meant when it approached 167, I had to keep my pace in check - which resulted in a number of miles in the low 6:40 pace.
Richie and I started together and ran until the 2 mile mark where after we had just run two consecutive 6:38's Richie decided to have a go at 6:30's for himself - and I bid him good luck. Ironically, I actually ran the next mile at 6:30 - but then as we climbed a bridge over the intra costal waterway to the mainland - my pace slowed to 6:47 and my heart rate spiked up to 172. So, I smoothed things out on the downhill side and kept Richie in my sights - though he was pulling away.
I nevertheless began to target other runners in front of me after the 5 mile mark and really started to roll after the 7 mile mark to the point where when I came on a runner at mile 9 he declared that my pace was strong and I only had 4 miles left. I clipped off two 6:30 miles but then was slowed on a bridge/overpass on the next one to 6:42. So although I was feeling as though I was running pretty quickly, my pace was a bit inconsistent .
I started to see what I thought was Richie as we approached the turn into Taylor Park just after mile 11 - and I thought he looked like he was coming back to me. As we rounded the corner a spectator let me know I was the 15th male overall - and I could see two runners in front of me and they were beginning to reel Richie in.
I really wanted to catch him, but as we made our way around the lake, we turned into a pretty strong headwind, and the course became an undulating and uneven dirt path for most of the last mile. When we finally hit the road again I simply ran out of race to catch them. I think he finished 1:26:52 - and I was about a tenth of a mile behind him. Later he told me that he held the 6:30's until mile 10 and then went into the "hurt locker" where he just hung on to the finish. We really probably could have run together.
Anyway, so while I was not so thrilled with the time, I took away some positives: I ran a very controlled and competetive race where I had no one pass me in the race, and was still working to reel in runners in front of me all the way to the end.
BTW - I ran from the finish to my car and then drove to church 45 mins away - changed clothes in the parking lot and made it with a few minutes to spare.
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