Bill Luti 5 miler

Abbey and I went down to the Bill Luti 5 miler yesterday, feeling a little nervous as we've had a pretty lazy July. I tried to convince myself that I was still plenty fit, just well rested, and I think I pretty much got it right as this wound up being my best Bill Luti ever. I made the top 10 for the first time, and got myself a 7 second course PR with a 27:34. Here's the run down.

1st mile- 5:10  I got out trying to stay relaxed, but all the guys I wanted to run with were flying, and I didn't wanna risk letting them get away too early so it wound up being faster than I wanted to get out.

2nd mile-5:46 I panicked a little when I saw the 5:45 but I reminded myself of the hill we'd just gone up and just tried to stay focused.

3rd mile- 5:21 The race is always tough in this section down to St. Pauls, usually I find myself falling back here, even though it's a pretty easy mile. This year I was able to make myself focus and stay in the race. There was a decision to make, about wether I was gonna start racing the couple guys in front or if I was gonna just try and finish the race respectably. I wound up deciding to race, and managed to relax and work my way up to the guys in front of me, Neal Graves and Mucopa from Concord. I tried to focus on my breathing and found myself feeling very light on a long relaxed exhale. I caught mucopa and was battling him through out most of the race as we tried to reel in Neal.

4th mile- 5:38 Our whole pack started to slow down on the 4th mile and Neal Graves who's in the CARS series was coming back to me. Mucopa and I caught Neal around there and he just latched on we were all hurting, and it would have been much slower if it'd been strung out.

5th mile- 5:29 I hit four miles in 22:05 and knew I was on track for a Luti PR if i kept on track and did my best to stay focused on that. We all continued to battle over that last mile but probably the last 600-800 I let those two get away. I was hurting, but I think I got a little complacent knowing I was on pace for a good time (for me anyways). I was really happy with the race though, right up to the last 600 I raced really hard and was rewarded with a good time.

Went for a nice cool down with Neal after the race. We were both pretty pumped with our races, and had a fun time chatting it up. Abbey and I got our two Maragaritas gift certs for top 10 finishes! Abbey was second though, and won a little money too. After the race we went and checked out the Market Day Festival in Downtown Concord. Pretty fun time, but I was hoping to find this woman who had a bunch of great Jams the last time I was there, and I couldn't find her. Later on we went to The Dark Knight Rises and it was awesome. Great day!