Recap:
“On your mark get set… (long pause) On your mark get set (long pause)” They were having some difficulties getting the gun to fire, but luckily that was no indication of my race start. I started out strong and held a decent pace up a pretty long and steep hill at about the half mile mark. When I got to the top I recovered for a second and then focused on speedy turnover to make up for a little lost time.
By the end of the first mile I was only off pace by about five seconds. My usual race strategy (top secret) is to start at 5-10 seconds slower than goal pace,