Race Report, Warning! it's kinda long

Cap Tex 10K Race Report:
                     Weather: Muggy, humid, upper 60's bleech.                          
  I went to sleep the night before at about 1 am. That sweet little puppy dog of mine really didn't want me to get a restful night, so at about 4 am I had to crate him and I moved to the couch. I woke up at 6:30 to start getting ready for an 8:45 am start time. I drank two cups of coffee, a bowl of granola with blackberries, loaded the ipod with race day music and headed to Rogue to park my car. I met up with some friends before the race (introducing super Joe in this picture) and jogged the 2.5 miles to the race start for a warm up. My run to the start was with my good friend Scooby who is nursing a reoccurring knee injury and is running the Eugene Marathon in a few weeks so his plan was to run real easy and not race it. I on the other hand was looking to run fast and set a PR (personal record). I had a race bib that allowed me to start in the third corral so it was near the front. It was nice to start in the corral because with nearly 20,000 people there my fear of crowds was on full alert. I loaded some relaxing tunes on the ipod to get through the 15 minutes of waiting in the crowd. Thank God for Townes Van Zandt. Seconds before the start I met up with my friend Paul and we crossed the starting line together. He had run a 20 miler the day before.
  I did not have a solid race plan. I did have a general sense of what mile splits I wanted to run. It was basically start slow and finish fast. If I could keep my splits in the 7:30-7:40 minute range I would be happy. Paul said he was looking to run 7:15's so I knew  we weren't going to be pacing each other. I also received some 3rd person advice from Panther, coach extraordinaire of Riff Raff, to run 10-15 seconds slower the first 2 miles, hit goal pace for the middle 2 miles, then speed up 10-15 seconds the last 2 miles.
   Now to paraphrase Robert Burns, "The best laid schemes of mice and men/Go often askew." From the moment I crossed the starting line I was just going to run and try not to collapse before the finish. I knew I was in trouble when I quickly pulled away from Paul who was planning on running 15 to 20 seconds faster than me and I didn't entertain for a moment that he was off pace. Oh well I thought just go for it. The humidity made it hard to breathe but the excitement of the first mile helped me get past that.
 MILE 1: 7:23.
    Oops. I was a little too fast. Surely I would calm down by mile 2 right?  Nope. I saw my friend Craig ahead of me as we were rounding the Capital. After inviting him to the post race celebration I went steeply down San Jacinto really fast. I freed up my hips and surged down that series of hills.
 Mile 2: 7:01.
   What the hell was I thinking? Coach Amy would be yelling at me right now but "friend" Amy would be laughing, right Amy? Luckily 15th Street was hilly, did I just say luckily, and I could slow down a bit because I was worried that I couldn't keep up that pace. At the top of the hills my lungs were burning, quads were on fire and I could not really feel my calves any more. Only 3 plus more miles to go.
  Mile 3: 7:42.
     Ok ground control this is major Tom and I feel a little more grounded now. I caught my breath and evened out my pace for the next 2 miles.This was the tough mental part for me. The middle is always the hardest.  I was already very tired at this point. I missed my mile 4 split so I just hit the watch at mile 5.
  Mile 4 and 5:  14:42.
     I ran the first half on the shoulder of who I thought was my friend Karen. As I passed her I smiled and said, "Hi Karen!" Whomever it was smiled back but I am not sure she was who I thought it was. At mile 5.5 good old Paul showed up behind me and waived hello as he passed. I was already happy with what my race finish time was going to be but when I saw Paul I sped up to finish with him.
  Mile 6: 7:26.
     The last .2 is always my favorite part. The crowd is cheering. You can run all out because you know just up ahead it won't matter what you have left in the tank because it is about to be all over. I gave it all I had and the last 50 meters was an all out sprint to catch Paul. I didn't want to pass him I wanted to finish with him.
  .2: 1:16.
     We literally crossed the finish line at the same step. So we both had the same race time. How awesome is that? I crossed the finish and leaned on the nearest rail until my heart rate dropped and I could breathe again.
                                                
                                                  Finish Time: 45:33. 2:20 PR 

                                               This was the last 50 meters.
  It was a tough race but I am very happy with my time and performance. I was a little concerned with only running 2-3 days a week that my running would suffer but it appears that swimming and cycling are also improving my overall fitness. Congratulations to everyone who raced and either won, PR'd, had a great race or all three. Team Rogue Elite had and awesome showing in the men's and women's division. Wow Desiree won a record 3rd time in a row and Allison finished just 3 seconds behind her.
  Now back to our regularly scheduled training program.