I woke up on race morning to temperatures in the low 50s, which felt great considering what I raced in the previous weekend. Unfortunately, I also woke up feeling completely drained and with a mild sore throat. The stress from the last week of work before Christmas vacation had been affecting my sleep (more than the usual sleep issues, but that's a story for another day). I still figured I'd go out there and give it all I had, but I knew there was potential for the race to be a long ride on the Struggle Bus, destination Pain Town.
I got to the Strong Museum and did a three-mile warm-up. I felt a little more winded than I should have for that warm-up, but I didn't think anything was wrong. In the last half-hour before the race it started to get cold and windy pretty quickly; it had been raining off-and-on all morning, so the cooler temperatures started to make the rain feel worse. I saw Matt and Dave at the start along with a few of the other local burners, so it looked like it could shape up to be a good race. Once all of the hundreds of people finally got to the start line, the race got underway.
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| Right after the start of the race. Credit: Brian Hughey |
The course is essentially an out-and-back on the Inner Loop that starts and ends at the Strong with a few turns along the way. There was a nice pack of runners out to the start of the Inner Loop, but then we hit a headwind. After a little bit, a group of four (Dave, Robbie Wade, Zachary Rivers, and Mike Heymann) started to pull away from me, but I couldn't find the strength to go with them. I was through the mile in about 5:11, about 10 to 15 seconds or so behind the lead pack, and it felt a lot harder than 5:11. Soon after, Mike and Zachary started to pull away even further. By this point, my hands and feet already felt somewhat frozen; those 50 degree temperatures earlier that morning were a tease!
The course was a bit more hilly than I remember the Inner Loop being. I kept pushing on to the halfway point, and I was still about the same distance behind Robbie and Dave. I had hopes of catching them, so I tried to push a little bit more in the second half. I started to make a little bit of progress. I was through the two-mile mark in 10:30 and tried to do a little more work to catch up to the two in front of me, and somehow I was still making some (incremental) progress. I was still in chase mode when we got off of the Inner Loop, but I wasn't exactly sure where the race ended. That question was soon answered when I saw the 3-mile mark and knew I'd have to go. I tried hard to muster any speed I had to catch Dave (Robbie had pulled away a little bit), but I couldn't. The course ended right after a hairpin turn, and I finished in 16:18, in fifth place overall. This led to 1st place in my age group since the top three can't double dip which scored me some delicious Once Again Nut Butter and a trophy.
Overall, it was a solid effort. I was hoping for a little faster, but given how I felt and the weather, I'm not disappointed. It gives me confidence that I'm still in decent shape, since the race from the previous week couldn't really tell me much. There is still a long way to go until the end of April, but this is a good start.
Full results here.
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