My girls haven't done a race for a while so when I saw the South Davis Community Hospital Superhero 5k on the schedule I thought they would have fun with that. Ordered them costumes (bat girl and black widow) and I just wore a superman shirt and red shorts. Couldn't find a red cape. They wanted to run this one on their own which forced me to actually race a 5k. I told myself I wouldn't race one until I was ready to run it under 20 minutes. Guess I had to give it a shot. The horn went off and a few high school kids jumped into the lead. Another guy passed me but I could tell he wasn't going to last the entire race at that pace. I wasn't wearing my Garmin so I wasn't sure how fast I was running but the pace felt hard. Hit the first mile marker in 6:20 which is exactly what I needed on this course for a sub 20. As we made the turn on to Porter Ln with a very gradual incline, I started moving up on 2 runners. Continued to run controlled and past them close to the halfway point. Tried to keep the pace to discourage them from staying with me. It worked on the older guy but not on the high school kid. He would catch up then drop back. Continued this for a half mile then I started to gap him. I knew that my only chance of beating him was to have a good enough lead before we made the final turn on to 400 north. There was no way I was going to out kick his young legs. Thought I had a good enough lead but heard him coming up fast with 0.2 to go. He flew by, I offered words of encouragement and cruised to the finish. Finished in 19:33 but I suspect the course may have been slightly short. Still sub 20 even if I added the extra distance. Ran back to find my girls. Gracie was doing great (finished in 27 minutes - a 2 minute pr) but Emma was struggling. Once I got to her, I just told her to run easy to the end. No more stopping. She was disappointed but still felt good about completing the race.
Got home and felt good enough to put in a few more miles. It was cool enough outside that it wasn't too punishing. Ran down to the LPT and put in 12 additional miles. Averaged 8:15/mile and felt great. | 