5th Season 8k

It was a bittersweet run this morning. I ran a big personal best of 23:45, but I was well out of the top ten. Last year I was 6th overall and the top American with a time of 24:28, but this year I was 18th overall and the 5th American despite running almost 45 seconds faster. The elite athlete coordinator, Bill Bails, did a great job of bringing in a world class field. I owe him a big thanks for his help and making it work out for me to make it to Cedar Rapids. My splits were 4:41, 9:22, 14:20 (I think, but I can't remember for sure) and 19:10. That is technically a new 4-mile personal best too. As you can tell, I was able to follow the pack for the first two miles and then I fell apart in mile three. The last two miles were solid and I'm happy with my time even though I wasn't in the top ten. Official results aren't published yet so instead of results I have to reference the infamous letsrun.com. Here's the link: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1432629 When official results become available I'll post a link.