Actually just the training run part of the race. Did the 1mile hill and down and over - repeat. All of the first mile is uphill but the second half is at an 8% grade.

Ran the first loop as a warm-up but I did push up the hill and then sped up a bit on the downhill but tried to save my knees. 8:54 mile up; 7:54 mile down w/ 29:19 for whole loop (3.625) Even at that pace, the hill was brutal this time.

Pushed hard from the start on round two. 7:50 up, 6:35 down w/ 25:34 for whole second loop (3.625) On downhill I let my stride go longer and that helped my knees quite a lot - I may have been too short and choppy on downhills, thereby pounding on the knees too much.

Looked back at last year's times - very similar for the first mile on my second loop.

Will repeat the process at least once more before race time - try to get the uphill portion down to 7:35-7:40.