Evan's Run 2016 Race Report

The Saturday night prior to Evan's Run, Elizabeth and I drove / traveled for 6+ hours before getting home at 2am - all in order to stay competitive within the NERunner Pub Series.  Needless to say, we were just a little bit tired on the morning of the race.

We showed up with not quite as much time to warm up as we usually do, and I had even less time as I somehow forgot to sign up for the race.  That could've been a disaster...After getting that sorted out I was able to get ~2.5m worth of a warm up, but it didn't feel like enough.  Sometimes you don't get to feel perfect before a race though, but you line up and roll the dice anyways.

I'm not sure how I ended up dead center up front, but I did:


When the gun went off, I pushed pretty hard to try and get to the right turn onto South Street (a quarter mile in) and to stay out of any traffic.  I'm pretty sure I was in the lead at this point, but that wouldn't last too long.  TJ and Lee would glide past me looking comfortable, and I stuck to their shoulder for a bit, with Holmes just off of my shoulder.  We all passed the one mile mark at around 5:08, and I felt ok.  The first mile is gently downhill, so it was quick, but within reason.  I felt like I could keep my effort level where it was, but unfortunately, my effort level had me losing ground to TJ, Lee and Holmes pretty steadily.  With two miles to go, I stayed focused on keeping them in sight, but not dipping into the well just yet.  I felt like that would be a recipe for a disaster of a third mile.

At some point during the second mile TJ and Lee broke away from Holmes, and the gap between he and I stayed relatively the same.  The second mile passed in 5:34, and I felt like I had let myself slow just a little too much.  It was a flat second mile, and I should've been at least 10 seconds faster, but this left me with some gas in the tank to close the gap on Holmes during the third mile.

Between 2.5m and 2.75m, or thereabouts, there was a decent hill, and I found that I had the strength to power through here and I made up a lot of ground.  Catching up to Holmes, I tried to make a really hard move to pass him.  We matched strides for probably 30 seconds, at which point I was thisclose to backing off.  But just as I was about to back off, he started to slow, and I held the surge for another 15 seconds to create a gap.  On a turn, I took a peak back, and I was comfortably in third place, and I'd cruise to the finish without needed to attempt a kick by the incredibly steep dowhill finish.  Not a bad day considering the previous days travels.

Splits:
5:08
5:34
5:31
25s

Final time: 16:38

Results