Great race to everyone! I was thrilled with a 3rd place finish against such tough competition. I did about a 2.5 mile warm-up then some strides. My goal for the race was to run under 1:11 so I didn't want to go out any faster than 5:20-5:25 effort knowing the first couple of miles were uphill I was okay with them being around 5:30. I just want to disclose that my watch measures each mile about .015 short, so as I list these mile splits my miles were actually about 1-2 seconds slower than the time listed. Mile 1 5:31, I ran this mile with Dave Olson the leaders already had a decent gap on us. I thought there were about 9 ahead of us. Mile 2 5:27, The gap kept getting bigger. I thought Dave was feeling okay but somewhere near the end of this mile he dropped back from me. Mile 3 5:23, I was running right where I wanted to be and I was feeling great, but my I was starting to lose patience. Mile 4 5:12 this had some downhill in it so I wasn't too worried about it being a bit fast. I think 2 guys dropped out of the race at this point. I'm not sure what they were doing. The gap on the group behind Bryant was getting pretty large at this point and I was starting to worry that I wasn't going to be able to catch any of them but I was working on catching up to Matt. Mile 5 5:13 this was a good mile I passed Matt probably about 1/2 through this mile and I don't think the gap got any bigger betweem me and the pack. Mile 6 5:27 this was a tough uphill mile I felt like I handled it pretty well though. Mile 7 5:28 despite being a little slow I felt like I was closing the gap. Mile 8 4:52 this had the huge downhill it, but I still probably ran this mile too fast I probably would have been better off at the end had I ran it a bit slower. According to my watch I reached 3:20 mile pace going down the steep hill. I made up huge ground though on this mile though and passed Dave Holt (I'm not going to lie I feel a bit of a healthy family rivalry there) at the end of that mile. There was just a little bit of a gap between Clyde and I at this point and a another little gap between Clyde and Mike, and I felt like Ben was within range at this point. I knew that Bryant was long gone by now and I really had no aspirations of catching him. Mile 9 5:04 I passed Clyde early in this mile but I was not closing the gap very quickly on Mike at this point. He had a really strong mile there as did Ben. Mile 10 5:12 I was still running well but I could feel myself running out of gas. I passed Mike somewhere in this mile but I could feel his presence and knew he was close to me for the next 1.5 miles or so. At the end of this mile I kind of gave up on catching Ben and made the decision to just try and hold on the best I could and try and take 3rd. Mile 11 5:21 I was just doing my best to hold on. Mile 12 5:17 still holding on for dear life. Mile 13 5:14 Finished a little stronger than I thought I was going to be able to based on how I was feeling at Mile 11. It was a tough but fun course and overall I was really pleased with my race. I thought it was lame that I didn't get a prize (besides a plaque) for taking 3rd overall for as big a race as it is I was at least expecting like a $50 gift certificate or some socks or something. I think it is a great starting point. I won't be happy if I don't run a lot faster in a few months. I cooled down about 3.5 miles after the race.
The highlight of the day was watching my 3 yr old Mitchell run the tough kids 1/2 mile race. He was so excited to run it and he did so well. He ran the whole entire way. He was the only one that was under 4 years old in his race and he took 6th out of 24 kids and he only got beat by 5 and 6 year olds. His time was 4:48.1. I was so proud of him!
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