This is my second race in three weeks, which is more than I raced all summer. This is my second attempt at this particular race, and I was slower (as anticipated). But the point was just to run hard and have a good time, not to get too preoccupied with the result. By the way, there isn't much that is fun about 6k, except that it is over relatively quickly and there is a brief feeling that you have accomplished something by running through a few barriers of pain that seemed insurmountable before the gun went off. I ran to the race from my house with JD. We ran into Adam RW and did a nice conversational warm up with him. It's been a while since we chatted. The start heads up toward City Creek Canyon from the Capitol and then turns around just before the one mile mark in the canyon. From there,it's a downhill screamer into memory grove. After leading the pack from the start for the first ten feet, I settled into the top 10 and focused on tracking down a couple of runners ahead of me. The ones wearing basketball shorts were first, then the ones wearing tights, and finally, one or two wearing running shorts.
The climb up City Creek was difficult as expected. I had a nice little race going on with a guy who passed me
early and then I caught him and managed to keep him at bay for the rest
of the race, but it took effort. The race down Memory Grove was fun, perhaps because I am very familiar with the area and can break it up into very small parts to help manage the effort. I don't have my watch with me to give my splits, but I can say that I hoped to average sub-5 minutes for the last mile down the canyon, but didn't. I ran 5:08, which isn't bad. Adam finished 30 seconds or so ahead of me, Josh won and so did Megan. She was just 30 seconds behind me and one of these days she is going to cruise past me in a race. More power to her. JD had a great race, running what I am sure is 6k PR. Then we had some cool down to return home. Nice Thanksgiving morning. Much to be thankful for.
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