2006 Black Moshannon 10K

I haven't been running as much this season. In prepping for the Triathlon I'm doing in August, I've devoted most of my cardio time to swimming. I've just been doing 5-6 miles, once a week, as maintainence.
I think that showed today. Although my main goal for this race was to run the whole way: last year when I ran it, I walked up the last 30 yards of the big hill.
One mistake I knew I made was having a few glasses of wine last night. That definitely dehydrated me. And I really didn't do any kind of taper at all: I've been working out all week. And I had meant to get new running shoes: I think the stability is starting to go on my current shoes. So I totally felt like crap pretty much the entire time.
Adding to that was the fact that I went out way too fast. I did the first mile in 7:11, which is a good 20 seconds faster than I wanted. I was already feeling a little tired when I started up the hill. But I refused to quit, even when my body really wanted to. I decided not to check my watch at the two-mile mark; I just wanted to get up this thing. I made it, and I knew I had a couple of miles of mostly flat road in front of me, before the downhill to the finish.
Then my back started tightening up again. All I could do was ease off the pace a little, relax and try to breathe through it. At mile 4 a few people passed me, but I also passed some youngsters who had sprinted ahead at the start of the race, and were now walking with hands on hips.
My back finally relaxed a little with about 2 miles to go. At that point, I knew I was under pace, but I just wanted to finish as best I could. I lengthened my stride, and passed a guy I had been trading positions with the whole time. I kept him behind me as I started the last, long downhill to the finish.
With the end in sight I came up on a guy whole had been ahead of me the whole race. I could have easily passed him with about a 100 meters to go, but that just seemed like a dick move. I eased up to let him finish 2 seconds ahead of me.

I finished in 50:53, two minutes slower than last year's pace, and in 45th place out of 93 runners. I wasn't happy with the time, but I knew I but everything I had into that run. I'll do better next time.