I had a really cool group race today. It didn't start until 4pm which was a bit weird, but here in HK the standard work week is 5.5 days, so people get Sat afternoon and Sunday off. It was far from home, and we were going to pick up a taxi from a metro station, but there were no taxis coming to our taxi stand forever, so we went to the streets and grabbed one. I arrived probably 20 minutes before the race started. Thankfully it was not too hot, perhaps 27F, quite humid (sprinkly at times). This group race is that you have six team members, and the first one goes at the gun, the 2nd one goes a minute later, the 3rd one goes a minute later, the 4th one goes 30 seconds, later, the 5th one goes 30 seconds later, and the 6th one goes 30 seconds later. Two runners need to be 40 years old +, and the men run 8k while the women run 7k. The last runner to finish their race is the team time. So there are intense calculations that go into where to place what athlete. I was in the last position. No pressure! The course was super hilly, not my forte. My job was to try to catch our second place runner, who was our only other woman, and to help her run strong to the end and try to not let our men catch us. Thankfully the course is mostly uphill out then mostly downhill back. My teammate Curtis advised me to not burn myself out going uphill, so I took that advice and ran the first half hard but not at 10k pace. There were so many runners ahead (the whole field except my wave, the fastest wave), so it was fun to pick people off, but I had a lot of weaving I had to do. I lapped at the turnaround (3.55k at 14:38, 4:07/k pace). At the turn around I could see there were still three ladies ahead of me, including my teammate. She's about a 40 min 10ker, so no slacker. She was in second at the turn around, but was in first by the time I caught her. I helped push her, but it really wasn't a race effort at that point. So the whole race was pretty much a tempo, which is about as good as it gets in this humid, hot weather. Second half split was 13:15 (3:48/k pace). The men never caught us, and only one person who was not in our Team Italia beat our last man in, so it was a good showing for our team. A nice low pressure race (except being in the last wave was some pressure). A 7k race PR! (ok I have never raced a 7k before).
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