The race was a blast. My mother dropped me off in Colchester as I had finished drinking my custom energy drink (3-4 coconut date rolls and spirulina blended in water). Almost everyone waiting was wearing baselayers, water bottles, ipods. Completely ridiculous. I took a warmup jog around Airport Park (it's an old grass airfield). I had been drinking so much water, I peed twice before starting 30 minutes later. I had to urinate right before the start while I was in the corral and the only thought going through my head was "too late now, guess I'll go in an hour and a half".
I looked around, enjoyed the experience of being in the race, then faintly heard the guy yell start. I immediately started my watch and noticed that I was being passed too much, and was getting stuck behind the pack. I looked at my watch and my pace was too slow. This is exactly what I had planned to avoid. I latched onto someone weaving through and followed him to the outside, at which point I passed TONS of people. I continued passing and passing and passing everyone I could for the first 4 miles or so.
A lot of the passing was on teensy uphills that others weren't trying on. I've learned I can burn those muscle groups harder because I don't use them on the flats as much. After that it became harder and harder to pass others, but it was still my goal that kept me going. Just one more person, over and over. I had passed most of the iPod wearers at this point. I had my target pace of 7:35 sharpied on my arm (along with the milemarks for water stations) but I was blowing that away, constantly taking stock how close to burnout I was and scaling back just enough to bear it.
Around mile 6 I started running in the dirt on the side of the path, to save on impact endurance. I caught up to this girl, she was the fourth or fifth woman at that time (probably 60th place total). We talked and I tried to help push her but she wasn't feeling it. She didn't want to get caught up to by the people chit-chatting behind us. We were doing about 7-7:20/mile.
At 7.6 miles I had eaten my almond butter/maple syrup snack and drank water. I picked up the pace again and pushed hard to catch up to the next woman. It took me three miles but I got there, and then a guy passed me who I had passed earlier. I followed and used him as a pacer, we were running 6:30-6:45. I kept with him from mile 10-12.5 (telling him not to let me pass him for much of the way), at which point he had to leave me to find his girlfriend.
Now I bonked, and thought I was almost done. My pace dropped to 7, 7:30, 8, 8:30, and when it hit 9 I had gotten to the mental point of saying NO, NO WALL. I had to decide to not my body dictate my speed and started pushing it harder and harder, it was like pulling a boot out of mud after running twelve miles. And slowly increased it again, and had gotten back to about 7:20 when I started on the downhill right near the finish line, and as I turned the corner I bolted and felt a surge of adrenaline that I can't say I've ever really had before, it was invigorating like a bolt of electricity. Then I must have been running a 6 minute mile to the finish.
My mother was at the finish waiting for me. She was volunteering checking bibs right in the finish chute, so I got to hug her right over the finish line.
What a great day!
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