When we got there about 45 min early, it was a nice temperature, maybe 64 or so, with a decent amount of humidity. We had enough time to get our bibs, stretch, and for Kevin to defecate. There were a lot more people there than I thought there would be. Since we had no clue where the race was starting, I was getting a little nervous when it was like 3 minutes before the race and there had been no attempt by the race staff to give us directions or line us up. But all was fine.
When we lined up Kevin, Eamer and I went right behind the "gosu" runners.. the guys with no body fat, no shirts and running wind sprints right before the race, probably a poor choice to get that close to the front, but oh well. I started out way too quick, as usual. My goal was to stick with Eamer the whole way and make a move at the end, but this plan led me going out too strong for the first mile. I think the combination of following those shirtless guys, the eleven-toed guy, and listening to the Phantom Menace theme song (which was awesome for the start) made me go too fast for my current abilities. When I checked my watch at the first mile I was at something like sub-7:40 mile, which I knew immediately was not sustainable. I tried to keep up the pace as long as I could but i got burnt out right before the 2nd mile mark.
The course was kind of boring, we ran on those roads out past the Ryan Center, and it was kind of running out one road .5 miles, then running back and going up a different road for .5 miles, rinse and repeat. It was boring, because we were just running back and forth, but it was nice to see where the top runners were, and see where the rest of the Tang's Clan was.
There was actually quite a bit of Race staff cheering us on through the race, which was nice, but it wasn't enough. At about the 2.2 mile mark, I had to walk for about 25-30 seconds. Looking back, I think I could have kept going, but at the time I was dying. Next race I need to work on just fighting through the pain. This walk combined with my falling pace, made Eamer get too far in front of me for a late rally... oh well my real goal was breaking 27 minutes.
The last .4 miles or so seemed to take forever, but when I saw the clock and the finish I had enough juice for a near-sprint. At the end they wanted that little piece of paper under the bib, which I decided I didn't need earlier (dumb) so the guy just ripped my bib off my shirt. Not only did he put a decent hole or 2 in my shirt, but he managed to rip my prized memento.
I finished with a 26:44 (8:37 pace), which I am very happy about. My last race a month ago was 28:13, so I shaved off 1:30 or so off my PR. I also was left with optimism for improvement... I know I can do a lot better, so I couldn't wait to start training again.
Other times were:
Nikki 30:53 (9:58 pace) - Nikki was happy, because she bettered her PR by about 2 minutes as well, and wins the Most Improved award.
Kevin ran 25:00 flat (8:04 pace) - He lost a little time off his last run, but an untied shoe and a messed up knee held him back a little bit.
Dr. Estus ran a 29:24 (9:29 pace) - I'm not sure about previous races, but it's a good time. Nikki was planning on trying to run with Dr. Estus, but she left Nikki in the dust.
Eamer ran a 26:09 (8:26 pace) - Eamer ran a nice steady race from what I could see, I was about 30 feet behind him for the entire race.
Eamer's friend ran a 22:50 (7:22 pace) - With no training at all, this boggles my mind. I think Eamer implied that this result was because he just finished P90X...ok.
All in all it was a good race: eamer, eamer's friend, Nikki and me all reached our goals, and it made the long wait till the half-marathon much, much longer.
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