This weekend I raced the NCUSATF title race for 8k at the "Running of the Bulls" race in Durham. Everything is bull-themed in Durham. Durham gets a pretty bad rap, most of which is deserved, but downtown is a cool place, and the race course wound around the downtown area and the two ballparks - DBAP and DAP, not confusing at all.

So, I didn't know exactly what to expect course-wise or competition-wise before getting there. Upon inspection, there were a lot of turns and a lot of up and down - neither of which fit the way I run much (that's probably not good). But I can handle pretty much anything for 5 miles. Bobby didn't come, so I knew I'd at least be inittowinit. Tim and Devin from RRO were there, but I'd heard through the grapevine that they'd been injured/missed training or something. That was good for me, be I felt terrible and really didn't want to get pushed. Devin ran 24:00 on that course a couple years ago - I knew I couldn't do that today.

Things started off straight uphill. I ran with the front group for that first few hundred yards to the top and then kind of sped off once it leveled out a little. I built up a decent lead pretty quickly and just held it to the end. I was really feeling heavy and tired and sluggish the entire way. I usually feel like that early in a race, but eventually I warm up and start feeling light and fast. That didn't really happen until the last half mile or so, and even then it wasn't transcendental by any means. My splits were all over the place, but the mile marks seemed a little off (I'm reaching here) and the hills probably slowed me down more than I want to admit

4:55/4:40/5:18/5:02/4:35

I didn't realize how much the pace fluctuated. I felt pretty evenly terrible the whole way. I guess I closed well, but if I had been challenged (if those guys were in ready-to-roll shape) I'd have gotten buried in a late push. That's not a great feeling.

Now i'm trying to figure out the best training between now and the Peachtree race in Atlanta on the fourth of July. I'd like to run well there, even though I know I'm going to get blow'd up by some of the best guys in the country.