Ok, so here's the updated info on this race. Temps were fairly comfortable at race start in the mid 70s, but it had rained all night and the humidity went through the roof as the temps rose to near 80 by 30 minutes in. I dumped my singlet at the top of Mt. McKinley with my parents who were there waiting for me and grabbed it back from them with about .3 to go because my bib # was on it.
I ran this race with my brother-in-law whom I raced with 2 weeks ago. He again got out to a 15 or so second head start by mile 1, but I caught him by mile 2, we ran together through mile 4 where we hit Mt. McKinley (aptly named, this beast was a full mile up with the first 400-500 yards at a significantly steep climb. About 25% of the runners in my view as I turned up it were walking halfway up this first section of the hill.) I hit the hill strong and passed probably 10 runners on it. My brother-in-laws IT band has been bothering him and by the top he was about a minute back of me. By the time I got to the top my singlet was soaked, weighing me down, and restricting my movement. I used the backside of the hill to recovery before attacking the back half of the course. This route was out one side of a penninsula, over the top and down to the other side and back in. Outside of McKinley it was a completely flat course.
Overall I was very pleased with my time. I did not achieve my short-term goal of sub 63:00, but only missed it by 36 seconds. Considering that I set this goal a while back and then missed 5 weeks of running and was only able to get in about 4 and a half weeks of running in the last 11 weeks I should consider this race smartly run and a great jump forward in getting back to form. 5th in my age group in a race of over 2500 runners is nothing to shake a stick at either. Well, enough of the overview and on to my splits.
No mile marker until mile 3 (Ugh!) 20:38 (6:53s)
Mile 4 - 6:46
Mile 5 - 7:22 (All uphill, very steep -- pleased with this time up the hill, I passed a good 15 racers going up.)
Mile 6 & 7 - 13:29 (6:45s)
Mile 8 - 6:34
Mile 9 & 9.3 8:40 (6:40s)
Got in a 2 mile warm-up and the race in my Asics Gel Speedstars 54.3
Got in a 1.5 mile cool down afterwards in my Nike Elites 108 | 