Woke up @ 7:10am...was still very much asleep and quite tired upon getting out of bed. Probably due to less than stellar sleep the last four or five days. Drove over to downtown Lansing and had a banana around 7:45am. Speaking of food, things were less than ideal leading up to this race. Completely my fault though. Went to a late lunch with aunt and cousins yesterday at one of the best breakfast spots in Michigan. Was fantastic, but ended up finishing pretty much everyone else's dishes...left so full that couldn't eat dinner, so by the time I woke up this morning hadn't eaten for 16 hours...oops! Found the OKXC squad before the race and talked with them briefly before heading out 40 minutes prior to warm-up 2.4 miles in 17:56. Felt alright. Very cold out with 19 degrees, cloudy, and 6 mph winds. Air horn went off at 9am and started off decently. Hung with the lead pack for the first half mile. Then guys really started to show their stuff and guy who ended up running 14:26 (?!) pulled people along. By the time I hit the mile at 4:58 was pretty much in no man's land and loosing motivation rapidly. Was so much harder than I expected to go out there and run without the boys. Nothing on the line put me mentally out of it and asking how much I was really willing to hurt today. With that in mind, the final two miles were somewhere a bit past a tempo effort, but certainly not racing. Two mile split was 10:08. Was also a little physically out of things...body definitely felt like I had extended the season past what it should've been. Think I kept my arms in pretty good shape though. Negatives aside, was a good way to start Thanksgiving morning and still managed to have a fun time out there. Overall, finished in 14th with a 15:55.2. Cool down was really enjoyable. Legs had good rhythm/bounce and by the end was enjoying the change of scenery in downtown Lansing. Ended up being 4 miles in 29:14. Afterwards did abbreviated stretching, then headed to snag some Cinn-a-stack Pancakes at IHOP with OKXC. Nice catching up with Paul, Will, Kyle, Abduallah, and some of the other guys. Gray PFs @ 209 miles and NB flats @ 384.5 miles.