Weekend meet report:
Gettysburg Invitational (the college, not the high school)
Temperature: ~35
Precipitation: mild cold rain
Course layout: veryflat, mildly loopy.
Ground conditions: Imagine running in standing water. Now do that for 8000m.
In short, it was cold, wet, muddy, slippery.
Coach reckons nearly half the people fell around turns and such. I was on the lucky half.
No idea on times; everyone was slow. My best guess based on watch time would be high 29, though it felt way faster. However, my 4k split was roughly 14:30, so that would be about right? Winning time was high 25, so given that it is such a flat course, the mud really must have held people back.
Got out pretty well at the start (which was rather large, plenty of teams there) and was going back and forth with a number of different runners throughout the race. Really felt like I was able to race this one (ironically) more than other races where it is sometimes more of just a tempo run almost. Lots of Messiah kids there. Moved up on the team, so that's good. Terrible finish though; i really metered out my energy during the entire race, and didn't have anything to kick with; got passed pretty badly in the last 200m which was a completely straightaway.
Tried out new shoes today (what a day to break 'em in huh?). Those Dirt Dog 2's now look thoroughly used. I washed them as best I could in the sink afterward, with some soap. My socks are hopeless; they stayed in a trash can in Gettysburg. Shoes felt good, granted it was too cold to feel much of anything.
