Weather was absolutely spot on this morning.  Mia and I headed out around 10AM before the forecasted winds picked up.  Temps were the mid 60’s and the morning clouds were breaking up to provide some nice sunshine.  We did the Mia Loop which is Manor Rd, to River Rd, out Horse Hill all the way to route 127, then up over Tyler Rd and back Warner Rd to River Rd again.  I ended up going out for a bit more towards Loudon and Oak Hill area so that I could get the legs moving before tomorrow’s race and loosen up after last night’s NHTI/Delta Dental 5K.  All in all it was a good day to get out and about.  Saw at least 20 other cyclists outside during our ride.

The NHTI 5K on Friday night was as always a fun event.  The course is pretty crazy flat and we get to run on some the their XC course, which is always exciting if you ask me.  This was the first time ever in a race I held back a bit.  I wanted to get in a hard effort, but not kill myself before the Rock Buster Duathlon on Sunday.
Last night’s race is only 5K, but it is long enough that if I went all out I would be feeling it for a few days.  I ended up running a comfortable 7:13 pace for a 22:25 total time.  2-3 years ago that would have been all out, but recently I’ve been consistently doing sub  7 min/mile pace for anything in the 5-7K range.  Now if I could just break the 6:30 pace this year I would be psyched.

That’s about it for now.  I’ll hopefully have a report for tomorrow’s off road duathlon.  Forecast is rain and wind, so it could be “interesting”.

Thanks for reading

-Pete