So I biked over to UVA (about 3 miles) and that got me loosened up for the race. Then off I went. Within the first two miles I realized how warm the race was going to be. The first mile was around 7:40 and I felt very relaxed. I continued along the way trying to stay loose. I saw a few people I knew along the way. I kept up the 7:30ish pace for the first 6.5 miles or so, and then started feeling a bit weak until about mile 8.5 when I regained some energy. The mile 8 and 9 markers were the only ones where I was over the 7:30 pace by more than a few seconds.

In mile 8 I pulled my shirt off. The sun exploded on to the scene around mile 7. It was REALLY hot. I hate running without a shirt (being so shy and all), but I didn’t want to run out of energy. In the final mile I picked up the pace a bit, and finished in 75 minutes and 9 seconds. My goal was 75 minutes, although I had doubts I could keep up that pace for 10 miles. Very nice!

I then had to bike home (about four miles) along a few really long steep hills. My legs really started to feel it at that point.

Now I’m home, the clouds have settled back in (about 20 minutes after I finished the race), and I got a few pictures to share…which I’ll upload in a few moments.

As a note, the winning pace was 5 minutes 11 seconds/mile. Yowsa. It was also the largest number of runners in the history of this race (around 2300). I finished around number 180.