I did an easy warm up 30 minutes before the race because I wanted to best my time of 58:00 in 2012. The 10K starts at 8:30 with the 5K at 8:45. There were 103 starters when the horn blew and I took off like a shot and was booking 7:30 minute miles during the 2 kilometers. Dry weather had made the trails quite sandy in places and it's alway a challenge to climb a sand hill. I felt strong throughout the race and did a final surge at the finish. I finished 21st overall and 2nd out of 5 in my age group by 4.5 seconds to a guy from Illinois with a time of 56:32, a personal best by 1:28. That gave me an overall mile split of 8:56. I would have pushed harder if I'd known the win was that close. As usual, the Garmin GPS I carried showed the course was 6.33, a little long. Next weekend is the Long Play 33 1/3 mile Run so I feel I'm primed for that.
