My third year racing this race and finally I laid claim to one of the coveted gold pan awards. All it took was a 1:15:55 to get 9th overall and 3d in my age group...crazy amount of talented runners that show up to this race year-in, year-out.

Drove up to Georgetown last night so I could avoid a stupid early wake-up and deal with the traffic this morning. It also allowed me to have dinner with Leah and Brent in Silverthorne last night. I haven't seen her in FAR too long.

The first two miles were quite a bit windy heading around the lake, and I couldn't hear myself breathing or dial within myself to see what I was pushing for a pace, but when I was in 7th after the first mile, I knew that I was probably going out too fast. (I wasn't, actually). I hate to say it, but my Achilles bugged me the entire race, and I was debating dropping out as we made the loop around and came back through the start. Just wasn't sure how it was going to hold up with the pace I was going to be pushing, but thankfully it held up well. Just a bit tight with some pulling.

Somewhere around mile 5 or 6, a group of runners shot past me like I wasn't even moving. It may have been even sooner, but I don't know. I was doing 5:50 or so, and they dropped me like a sack of potatoes. Another guy passed me soon after, but we sort of sling-shotted for a few miles until I overtook him around 7 and held him off. It was at 7.5, when we were running on the dirt/rock path that a truck came down a side dirt road and rounded a blind corner just as I was coming up on it. Had I been two seconds faster through that stretch, there may not have been any time to stop and I would have been a hood ornament. Luckily, I wasn't fast enough today.

I spent the next three miles holding off the guy behind me and reeling in a couple of the runners ahead of me that had passed me in the group earlier. Only picked off two of them, Matt finished about 15 seconds in front of me, but he's like 6'5", so his stride is a tad bit longer than mine.

My legs felt heavy the entire time, still not recovered from last weekend, but had enough in me today to pull out a course-PR for me and give me a bit more confidence heading into my marathon next month. Now all that's left is climbing a 14,115 foot mountain next Saturday.