| Cool, 43°, intermittent light drizzle, windy. The course was the same as last year. Rolling hills that challenge with the opportunity to use different muscles.
Coming halfway between two goal marathons, this race was not the priority I thought it was going to be when I registered a couple of months ago. Going into the race on a week of no training due to work pressure, I planned to try to hit 5M @ 40, then speed up to 7:45 through 10 and go from there. The first 5M @ 8mpm felt too tough. I was breathing too hard, and experienced a tight R calf muscle through the race. I was part of a minute late at 5M, but still less than a whole minute later than 8mpm at 10M (80:5x) Somewhere along the last few miles, just when my brain typically loses the ability to do split arithmetic, my HRM started displaying interval time on the top line along with time-of-day on the large, middle line. Huh? I was looking to see if the 2nd 10K took the same amount of time as the 1st 10K, and saw the time of day, 12:4x, instead of some time like 1:4x. Still, it recorded splits faithfully to the end.
After running the inaugural race here last year, I told the race director at another of my frequent faves, the Covered Bridges Half Marathon in Quechee, VT, that his race was better executed. After today, I think it might be a toss-up.
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