Got up about 6am and had some breakfast. Then I woke up my 6 year old who was thinking about running the 1 mile fun run. The forecast was for 35 degrees, however, they changed it last night to 45-50, so the plan was for him to see if he thought it was too cold. At 6:15 I got him up and took him outside, he shivered once and said no. I shouldn't have asked him and given him the choice, because it was perfect at about 50 degrees. At any rate, I told him fine, go get in bed with your mamma ;-).
So, I got a good warm up in with 3 miles in the 7:30 range. Changed into race gear and then hit some strides and such. Temps at the gun were around 55, sunny, no wind. Perfect. My goal for this race was to break 6:15s, which would have been 7 seconds/mile faster than last year. Its a very tough 5 mile course with miles 3 and 4 containing an endless series of short, but tough hills, culminating each of these miles with a 300 yard climb. The 2nd and 5th miles are relatively flat and mile 1 has a slight downhill slope.
The gun went off and I had planned on staying about 15-20 seconds back of the leader and trying to make a move once we got into the hills. Clearly this wasn't happening as the winning time was 27:05 (5:25s). Bagging this plan, I tried to find a pace that I felt was holdable throughout and taxing as well. The plan worked well as all 3 miles that did not contain hills were run sub 6:00s. Overall time was 30:31 (6:05s). Splits as follows:
1- 5:45 (a bit surprised, didn't intend to go out quite this fast, but it felt comfortable enough, so I figured maybe the marker was off)
2- 5:58 (thinking that perhaps the marker for mile 1 wasn't off because I basically came back with the same split because the 1st mile was slight downhill, and this one flat)
3 - 6:16 (starting to get into the hills, nothing major yet, but enough to annoy you with probably 4 50 yard climbs, and 1 250 yard climb)
4- 6:36 (the 2 biggest hills in this mile, each about 300 yards long, 1st one at the beginning of the mile, 2nd one at the end)
5 - 5:55 (Was trying to finish under 6:00 and did so. Climbing on 4th place through this whole mile, but just couldn't catch him as he finished about 50 yards ahead.)
I'm very excited about this finish. I believe that I can potentially break 6:00s on a flat 10k course and this should be a great warm up for the 1/2 marathon next weekend. This is a big PR over last years race by almost 17 second a mile. The training is starting to pay off and my times are diving down right now. Today is a good day!
Pegasus - 78.15
Gel Speedstar - 77.15 | 