Ok, so I can’t follow a plan… I was supposed to break this race up into thirds, and run easy/medium, medium, and then medium/hard, and I was going to use my HRM to stick to that plan.  I’ve got Uhwarrie 40 in two weeks so I figured it was a good idea to go “easy,” but I guess it’s not in my blood to not run hard when I’m in a race. However, I’d probably say this was an 8 out of 10 effort wise, so I wasn’t killing myself out there.

Here’s a photo from mile 4 and this makes it look like 8+ effort-wise… But this bridge was icy so maybe it was that…

I’ve not worn an HRM in a race in 4 years! It was way off the 1st mile or so, and when it finally came in accurately, I decided not to worry about it. I was feeling pretty good even though it was reading right around LT level…

I did accidentally grab a pair of road shoes — my Kinvara’s — instead of my trail shoes. My Mix Master 2’s are the exact same grey and red! So all the rain and snow and snow melt, which created a lot of mud, made for quite an adventure in the Kinvara’s, but I never went down, though I came close.

I ended up finishing in 1:25:07, according to my Garmin.   Here are the splits… Lots of down hill the 1st two miles, and then miles 5-10 are tough as it is on the mountain bike trail — lots of tight twisty turns and ups and downs.

Official race times:

2013 39 Sean Butler Pittsboro NC 42 16/82 M 40-49 1:25:08.8 8:31/M
2012 59 Sean Butler Pittsboro NC 41 22/83 M 40-49 1:25:09.7 8:31/M

Looking at other times from 2013 vs. 2012, seems like many runners were 1-2 minutes slower in 2013. So that plus the shoes I wore and I think I had a pretty solid run!