This is the fourth time I have raced this course, well, 2nd at this distance, they moved the starting line up a bit so the 5k is closer to a 5k and the 10k is just under 6. But at least it is a consistent length now so I can compare times. Leading up to this race I messed up my back Thursday night, so Friday morning I was pretty crooked and wasn't sure I'd be able to run at all. My normal chiropractor isn't in town on Friday's so I ended up going to a chiropractor who had been setup at the end of a race last year. He was able to straigten me up enough so I could run Saturday morning. I was pretty concerned that the downhill would really throw my back into a mess if it wasn't working properly at that point. I went for some warmup to see if the back, hips and legs would seem to be working for me, and after a few minutes of jogging around they seemed like they would work okay. So I had hope that I would be able to keep my top 3 streak alive. I didn't see anyone I recognized running the 10k that I was overly concerned about. Clark Nielson was running the 5k this year, he won the 10k last October. My cousin's high school kid Paxton is very fast, he ended up winning the 5k. As usual the first 2 miles I trail a pack of people and am never sure how many of them are running the 10k until they head back up 400 North. My friend Toni ran with me the first 3 miles. As the runner's split Toni and I had just one runner ahead of us by about 40 yards. I started to surge for a few seconds at a time and slowly caught back up by around the 3 mile mark. That's when the 4th mile of the course starts heading back uphill from Geneva back to Orem. I put on some distance on Toni and the guy who had been in front on those hills and was able to maintain the lead until the finish. The run down the side road at 800 north is always a treat. There is no straight path down that road, so you have to zig zag over curbs, around islands, sometimes jumping over tall curbs, always a treat to make it through that section without tripping over something or twisting an ankle over the odd terrain. I was feeling a little oxygen deprived the last mile but strong enough to keep pushing to the finish. It was awesome to drop around 24 seconds off my time from January, as well as getting my first 1st overall at this race. My splits were 5:41 186 bpm 5:34 187 bpm 5:49 175 bpm 6:13 176 6:25 179 6:01 181 The watch shows a 346 foot descent and climb. My first mile was 3 seconds slower than January, the 2nd was the same and the rest were a little bit faster.
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