Ran the Cedar Canyon Half and was pleasantly surprised with how well things went considering my training at this point. Really I haven't been hitting the miles too heavy, right around 35-38 mpw on average. Goal for today was to try and go somewhere between 1:15 and 1:17. Got up to the start and did a Mile warm up and a little strecthing before they had us walk up to the start line. Race had just over 800 runners in it this year which is crazy considering they have struggled to keep it increasing from 400-500. Gun went off just a little after 7 am. No one really went out to crazy at the start which was a good thing. I kept the pace nice and relaxed and sat in about 5th place until mile 4 roughly. From there I moved into 4th. I kept the pace pretty chill at the start, high 5:4x's nothing too crazy. I know how this race plays out from running it in years past. Guys will try and kill it the first 4 and then die after that so I decided to just run my race and hang back. At about mile 5 I started to drop into some 5:30's and caught up to the leaders. I ran with them for roughly a mile and felt good enough to take the lead. Miles 6-9 and even into 10 I felt really good and was actually surprised to be where I was at that point in the race. Once we hit the trail though just before you came into town it really became a struggle. I started to feel like I was really laboring and that my form was going to crap. The last 2 miles they have you run up a couple hills which every time I get to that point I think what the heck am I doing? I maintained the lead right up to the last 0.5 miles or so where one guy I passed at mile 7 comes by. He was a nice guy and came right up next to me and said, "lets finish together", I told him I was spent and said just go, but looking back on it I should have at least hung on better. I missed the win by roughly 8 seconds, and crossed the line at 1:15:00, so goal met! Overall I feel like this was one of the better races strategically speaking that I have run. I didn't blaze through the first few miles, just hung back, relaxed, and ran my own race. Mile splits were. 5:48, 5:47, 5:46, 5:25, 5:34, 5:30, 5:47, 5:33, 5:38, 5:44, 5:59, 6:03, 6:08, last .1 5:38 av/mile. Once again overall I feel great about today. It was a course PR, and having done this will the little speed work I did through the summer, I feel that if I can get back to regular speed work and up my miles again good things are in store perhaps!
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