Yesterday I ran the Charleston Distance Run in Charleston, WV. It went like this:

I woke up in the morning with my hip feeling tight after sitting in a funny position during the car ride up from Raleigh. I slapped some KT tape on it, and it seemed to help. I stepped outside in my shorty shorts and goofy socks and was immediately met with mid-July morning humidity. It's been really nice in Raleigh the last couple of weeks. I really didn't want to deal with this. We drove down to the state capitol building (near the top of my list of cool looking state capitals, second only to the great green dome of KS) near the Kanawah river. They started us out and a group of probably 4 guys took to the lead. My plan (not considering the plan of anyone else) was to run 5:19s most of the way and then speed up the last few miles. Arrogantly I didn't actively seek out a course map, someone had told me it was mostly flat with one big hill early in the race, so I went with that. We went out dropping 5:12 then 5:00. A Kenyan started pushing the pace, and I was happy to lurk, planning to let him run as hard as wanted, then jump him when he got tired. He got tired when we started to head up the "Capital Punishment" hill. I didn't think it was really that bad. We went so slow that it didn't take much out of me. At the top of the hill, we turned into some steep switchbacky hills. It was a really pretty area. My only real trouble came as we came back down the steep hills. I was feeling the hills from last week as I stumbled down them behind Bryan Morseman (2:2o marathoner) Luckily by 8 miles we were back on level ground. I pushed a little in an effort to get back on pace, I clicked off a few around 5:10 and got a big lead and managed to hold it to the line.