Wow!!! What a great day for a race. The weather was close to perfect at the start. I have no idea what the temperature was but it was perfect. Very light breeze......just enough to shimmy the leaves on the trees a tiny bit. Lots of friendly runners and a very helpful staff of volunteers who ran a very organized race from my perspective.
Boarded the buses at about 5:30 and got up to the camp ground around 6:00 and well....you all know what happens before the race. Spend time in lines waiting for the POPs (at least twice). Anyway......I ran a bit and stretched...you know.....the other important pre-race stuff.
Finally....the horn sounded and we were off and running like the wind (or at least it felt that way as we began cascading down the hill back to the Inland Empire). Heard several friends telling each other to "slow down we are going out to fast" and as it turned out many of them did as we passed several walkers with beat up calfs and shins along the way.
Mile 1: 6:53
Oops!! Went out a lot faster than anticipated! I was hoping this wasn't going to kill me later in the race.
Mile 2: 6:59
Still didn't learn from the first mile and decided to try and put on the brakes a little just to conserve energy.
Mile 3: 7:09
Much better......this is the pace I like and and as you can tell tried to stick to it for the remainter of the race.
Mile 4: 7:11
Mile 5: 7:09
Mile 6: 7:08
Mile 7: 7:04
Mile 8: 7:04
End of the down hill and now a stretch along the loneliest road in the world. The field is so spread out and there is nothing but weeds and bushes for the next 2-3 miles.
Mile 9: 7:09
Mile 10: 7:08
Finally back to civilization and decided to walk through the aid station to hydrate, power gel and gear up for the last 5K.
Mile 11: 7:19
Can tell body is starting to feel the miles and decide to take one more drink at this aid station.
Mile 12: 7:37
Starting to lose it here. Should have skipped the drink, stomach is now feeling it.
Mile 13: 7:23
Ran past a business cooking something that didn't agree with my nose but they had the music turned up and it helped me to refocus a little bit. Are those balloons getting any closer?
Mile .17?: 1:09
Not sure what happened with the Garmin but ended up with 13.17 miles. I imagine running through canyon may have messed up the signal here and there.
Over all felt really good throughout the entire run and am totally excited about the new PR. Not really sure if a generally downhill course really counts for a PR but I never even dreamed of averaging 7:13/mile so I don't really care if it counts or not. Old PR was 1:45:58. | 