I don't have time to write much, but all I can say now is... wow. It was a great race, and I edged Mike Vick out at the line to win (however he out chipped me by .02 so they declared it an official tie). We beat a BYU guy by 1:07 and Shin (Japanese guy who placed 5th at SLC marathon) by 1:08. So, the race course starts at Timpview High School and heads North on Timpview Dr. At the starting line myself, Mike Vick, the BYU guy and Shin were all lined up next to one another. The rest of the field gave us a small gap, so we didn't need to worry about any bumping around at the start. We took off and I slid in behind Shin to draft off of him since there was a slight headwind, however Shin had different plans and he moved up a little quicker than I found comfortable. So, I moved over and started drafting off of both the BYU guy (Reagan Frey) and Mike Vick. There is a gradual uphill for the first mile or so and I stayed behind them the entire time. Shin had a 5-10 second gap when we hit the first nasty uphill dubbed goliath by the race directors which was near the mile mark. He immediately started to struggle and Reagan moved up and put about 20 meters on both Vick and myself. We passed Shin, who was breathing really hard heading uphill and once we crested the hill we started to close on Reagan. The course drops after the crest of the hill and heads into some rollers for a while, and by the time we hit the 2 mile mark Reagan was struggling. Shin was already a ways behind us, but was maintaining the distance, and we dropped Reagan who fell back with him. At this point I started to push the pace a little more and a little over halfway through Vick asked if I could hold back a little. He suggested that we maintain pace a little longer and race near the end. I agreed and we backed off a little bit, but still kept the pace strong so that the other two wouldn't catch up to us. We headed down the hill by the Provo Temple and after getting to the bottom we started to pick up the pace again (about 4 miles in now). Up to the three mile mark I had mostly sat on Vick, however from then on we mostly ran side by side and occasionally I would pull ahead followed by a small surge from Vick to pull back in front. This went on until during the last mile I started to fade a little as Vick pushed the pace faster. I dropped about 5 meters behind him and maintained that gap for a minute or two. I then realized how close we were to the finish and I decided that I needed to close the gap if I wanted to beat him. I closed the gap by the time we hit Timpview Dr once more and when we turned the corner I was right on his shoulder. I was moving to try and pass him as we turned left into the parking lot, but a guy finishing the 5k ran into us as he was trying to kick to finish his own race. This gave me 25-30 meters by my estimate to make up what was now a 1 meter gap between Vick and myself, and somehow I found a gear in me that is very rarely there and I blew by him to cross the line just barely in front of him for the win. Reagan and Shin came in a bit later, with Reagan out-kicking Shin as he had to come from a ways behind to catch him at the end. They came through at 33:33 and 33:34. I had 32:32 on my watch when I crossed the finish line, so I think the timing started a few seconds late, as the official gun time had both Vick and me at 32:27.4 and the chip time had us at 32:26.9. Either way, it was a solid time and a new 10k pr for me on a slow course. I think that I could go sub 31:00 on a fast flat course at sea level, or one similar to Des News. By my recollection this is also the most competitive race that I have ever won, which is a great step forward for me.
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