City of Lakes 25k

Today was the big race or so it should have been. I woke feeling like any other day. Normally I have a very energetic feeling running through my legs and am looking forward to the race. Today was nothing like that at all. The rain outside may have been the reason. No not really I checked the weather and it was not raining in Minneapolis.

As I warmed up with Kurt I thought about how the race would go. I had an inner confidence which I usually do on longer races. They suit me well. There was a good field. Donavan Fellows, Chris Lundstrom, Jeremy Polson, Patrick Russell, Eric Pierce. This didn't concern me as I had a few goals. Number one was run at least marathon qualifier pace. Number 2 was be competitive. Number three progress.

As the gun went off I realized a few things. Nobody really wanted to run into the wind. Nobody was too anxious to set a fast pace. The pack of the 5 above and teammate Jeremy Essler went through the first mile in 5:27. The second mile shed Russell, Pierce and Essler as we picked it up a bit 5:20 ish. Mile 3 was back into the wind and by now Fellows and Lundstrom had gapped us. I was content on maintaining this pace as we were running 5:20, 5:16, 5:19, 5:15, and 5:22. By the time we got around to the west side of the lake Polson had 10 seconds on me. He would widen the gap on me until I started to push the second lap.

Once I decided to go after him I really dropped my pace. A few 5:16s did the trick and I caught him on a hill. This is the same sort of move I had last year but the miles were a touch faster. I caught Polson on one of the last hills. As I caught him he did the old turn your head and take off trick. I had no answer and settled on running it in the last mile or so.

I acheived all of my goals and still have 8 weeks of training to keep getting better. Overall a good race and I can only be happy with the way things turned out.

On side note I think we won the team battle and finished up the season on a good note.