Anthem Life 10 mile race

Last weekend I headed to Manchester for the Anthem Life 10 mile. Based on my 5k and my tempo run ½ marathon I was thinking I could run around 1:03. The course was one I really liked as I’d done a lot of running on the Goffstown and Piscataquod rail trails.  Due to the nature of rail trails the course would be a steady climb of 10-30 feet per mile for 5 miles then we’d turn and retrace our steps with a nice steady downhill.  Based on the course I hoped to run under 6:30 pace for the first half and hopefully come back quite a bit faster.  The seeding for this race was a bit unusual as they only asked if you could run under 70 minutes (and then 10 minute spacing) so everyone in the sub-70 group was randomly given a start time.  I ended up with cone #2.  I headed out onto Commercial street and tracked down the early leader by ¼ mile into the race.  My watch was set to beep every half-mile but for some reason I had trouble hearing it today and never really saw my watch splits.  I checked the watch at the 1 mile mark and was 6:49.  Ugh!  I was really disappointed with that as it felt like I was moving well.  I tried to relax and figured the effort was good so I wouldn’t worry about the time.  At the 2 mile mark I had a split of 5:13.  So at that point I knew the mile was wrong and was now wondering if maybe 2 miles was correct and I was running just over 6 minute pace.  A 6:04 next mile had me convinced I was in fact running low 6’s and that was very encouraging.  Right around that point I was passed by a guy who started 30 seconds or so behind me and he was MOVING.  I did not latch on but did try to keep him in sight.  The fourth and fifth mile are probably the slowest as the trail was dirt (and even a bit rough in spots) but I managed to hit the turn in 30:40 which was a huge surprise.  It’d be all downhill from there!  The leader was for the most part out of sight now but I could see all of the people on there way out to the turn and after 7 miles I’d be running through the 10km field.  So, there was always someone to chase down.  I had miles of 6:02, 6:01, and 6:03.  After 8 miles I was starting to feel the distance.  I rarely run longer than 6 miles in training so things can start going sideways during the later miles.  I held it together for the most part and only slowed about 10 seconds a mile over the last 2 and managed a second half of 30:18 to stop the clock in 60:58 which was good enough for second place overall.