Didn't get as much sleep last night as I wanted but it's all good. It rained all day today so the course was real soggy when we got there. Also, I just remembered that they lengthened it by a fair amount. Today Andrew was at the race doing his workout, so he went hard for a mile, cruised and then finished the last half mile hard. I began running and Andrew was quickly in the lead. He was booking so I settled in behind him for almost 800 meters and then decided it was in my best interest for him to get a distance on me, which ended up being fairly small, but maybe 2 seconds when we got to the mile, where he began jogging and I passed him. Behind him, the front pack was all sitting on my butt. They thought they could get me today, so they tried to make it easy by making me lead. I didn't let it get to my head and kept pushing. Eventually, I made separation approaching 1.5 miles and the start of loop #2. By ear Tom was only 1-1.5 seconds behind me for our second time through the starting stretch, but I knew that he was hurting by the tiny gap that had formed. I managed to open it up to 5 seconds by a little past 2 miles. I've been having a stomach nightmare this week, and today was no better, but I didn't let it affect me until the last mile when it hurt too much to ignore. However, I managed to keep pushing, and despite my lack of a kick, open up the gap to 14 seconds. This is 8 seconds faster than I ran on the older, shorter course during dry conditions. For having to lead the whole way, I'm convinced this is a good performance and an indication of my continously improving state. Seeing Andrew ahead of me helped me not panic.
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