Thu-Decent long run for an hour, used my old gray racing flats, 3200 W to 6200 S across Bangtr & thru 'hoods, out to 4800 W and back, felt the joy, consistent pace, cold face, cooled the fire
Fri-rest but worked 2 jobs for 2 schools and went to Presbytery, story in itself
Sat- Had a plan to take it easy for 2 miles and then push it, especially with the wind on the way back. Was surprised to hear 6:48 for 1st mile, knew I was holding back too much but wanted to keep with my race plan so then ran 6:49, opened up after 2 and ran 6:24, figure I was about 20:40 at halfway (clock went by 10 second intervals). I had been running with a guy and mentioned that I just wanted to find someone to trade air with on the way back. Whereupon he, knowing my race plan, hit the turnaround and promptly seemed to put 50 yards on me in about a minute! What? Yeah, what.
Luckily, my friendly nemesis Richard came up and and gave me someone to run with, we played cat and mouse a little but he took the lead and I tried to hang on. I thought that I'd feel him breaking wind but if I was 5 feet from him it felt like I might as well have been 50 feet. We did manage to catch another guy who looked to be 200 feet ahead after mile 4. I stayed w/i 50 feet of Richard and I could see another guy we could catch, after further scrutiny I realized it was my boy BK. I knew I was working hard cuz I did catch him finally but man 100 yards catching someone takes a mile to do! Richard had passed BK and then I caught him w/ probably 4/10ths to go, I said, "It's always hard." He said, "Yup," and promptly strided it out and I couldn't catch him again. I picked it up and started to kick it in w/ .2 left, noticed I was audibly grunting with every breath and tried to just breathe, then realized I didn't care what people thought, even myself, and grunted on home.
Overall I was happy that I averaged just under 7 minutes per mile on the way back and was 21:44 for the 2nd half. Being only a minute slower is comparable to the top guys, including my bro Nate, I just really wonder if I wasn't too slow for the first 2 miles. They were pretty easy, with the way the wind was on the return there was no getting around the efforting that needed to be done so I don't know if I could have efforted much more.
So now it's the rubber match, BK and Richard I beat in the 5, they took me in the 10, and the 15 it's on like Donkey Kong!
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