I ran the Frostbite 5K (Sumner County, TN) yesterday. My time was a little slower than I'd hoped, but I ended up taking 3rd place (out of around 200). So at least I got a sports bag prize out of it! I got to the race site a little late and didn't get much of a chance to warm up. It was cold. The first mile was in 5:57. I started a little bit behind the front and had to weave my way through people. I probably should have had a faster first mile, because much of it was downhill. Next time I'll try to make it to the race a little earlier and get closer to the starting line. The next mile I ran in 6:20. There were two fast kids way ahead of everyone who I never saw after about the first half mile. (These two got times of 17:05 and 17:12). Another guy (Mike) and I slowly broke away from the others. From mile 1 to the finish, I didn't see any other runners except for Mike. I followed about 5 yards behind him from mile 1-2. There were quite a few ups and downs. I felt the pace was a little too slow and picked up the speed a little just after the mile 2 mark. I passed Mike and stayed ahead of him the rest of the way (he ended up finishing 20 seconds behind me). There was a bit of uphill on this last mile. Had a nice sprint for the last 50 yards. Anway, my time was slower than I'd hoped. I had a goal of sub-18 minutes. It's probably that I'm just not as fast as I'd imagined. Other factors include 1) not enough of a warmup, 2) a bit of a cold/ sore throat this weekend, 3) a hilly course, 4) lack of a racing strategy, 5) few people close enough to my target speed to run against. In any case, it was nice to run a race again. |