Little late this morning and missed my warm up totally, but since it was 15 degrees I didn't really care. It really was a beautiful day though. It was fun saying Hi to everyone from the blog for the first spring race and then it was time to get to work. I wanted a 5:40 pace today and not a stupid race like the ones I keep running, a good tempo run before Boston. By 3/4 mile I was feeling the altitude. I just do too much training at sea level right now. I think the race is at about 6,400 feet and I was winded already. James M. was loping along side me like it was a Sunday afternoon jog in the park. I was kind of stiff and didn't want to spend 13 miles feeling like that so I picked up the pace to 5:20 and stayed there for the next three miles, trying to shake it out. I began to catch up to the lead group of three, but about 6 miles into it I felt like they were probably going to hold that pace and ran my own race. When the course leveled out I began to catch my breath and felt much better than the start. I could then just focus on hitting the 5:40 and relaxing. Somewhere in there 7 Rossy cruised by me and slowed enough to say Hi for a minute and he was gone. Smooth race and the first half in a long time that was just fun. This course has never been one I enjoyed. Just a few seconds fast on pace in average, but it was due to shaking out some on those first miles.
Awesome talking to Albert, Ben, Riley and Rossy together after the finish. These guys are in the groove. Ben and Riley especially are hitting some really neat workouts. There's some cool stuff coming from these two this year. James and Allie are fun as usual, and James had some great ideas for running parts of Bostson that had me worried. Thanks!
Now heading up to White Pine trail above Tony Grove for an afternoon of Cross Country skiing. Word is 8" of fresh powder that's melting fast...
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