Busy last 24 hours but a decent race result. Not super fast but ok for the course. This week was a very low mileage week but I needed it. Next week I will try and get things going again. Friday night I had a military formal ball that I was at and did not get to bed until after 11:00pm. I then woke up this morning at 4:30am and jumped in the car for the 3 hour drive to Cedar City for the SUU Army ROTC 5K that the cadets put on each year as a fund raiser. Thwy did a great job and there was about 200 individuals registered this year. They had a ton of prize give aways and almost everyone walked away with something. I won a free pizza and a free desert. They even gave away a microwave a TV and a three day vacation. Not bad for a local 5K race. Now for the race report. It was a hilly course and at 5,900 feet elevation with a little bit of wind as well so I knew the times would not be fast. The course is a two lap course around the SUU campus and starts with a gradual uphill for the first 1K that has a shorter (100m) steeper section right before the 1K. It then turns on a gradual down for about 800m. It is then fairly flat for 600-700m and turns back up for another decent climb (200m) bcak to the start area. Repeat and finish half way up the last hill on a 100m gradual hill. My GPS measured the course at 3.12 miles so pretty accurate. I do not know any local runners in Cedar City so had no clue as to how fast things would be. At the start I could tell they were one or two that looked like the running type but hard to tell. I decieded to go ahead and push the first 1K up the hill just to see if anyone was serious. I took it out and two guys seemed to jump in behind me. By the time we reached the steeper section of the hill right before 1K I noticed I was pulling away from them. I just cruised the down hill and tried to relax. At the end of the first lap I had a good 200-300m lead and was in time trial / tempo mode. I tried to hold steady up the hill again and keep things going well to the end. My goal going in was to break 18 minutes and I accomplished that running fairly steady. Mile splits were 5:30 (1k up and 600m down), 5:50 (600m flat and 1K up), 5:44 (mix of up and down). Loaded in course analyzer and it says it is 7 seconds per mile slower than a flat course. Overall I guess I am pleased. Not as fast as I would like but ok. I think with someone pushing I could have run 20 seconds faster or so. Time to get back to some real training now that I am done slacking off this week!
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