It was the dark of night when I drug my sorry butt out of my nice warm bed.... I
suited up in some toasty tights, related running apparel, and my headlamp; ate a
gel for breakfast; and jogged a warm-up mile to the starting line of Our Lady of
Lourdes' 20th Annual Leprechaun Lope 5K. It was dark and chilly but it wasn't
crowded. It seems I was the only one to show up 3 months early for this race.
But my training plan called for racing a 5k and that's what I was going to do,
even if there weren't any in this part of the valley on this day.
The
race starts just east of the capitol and runs around City Creek and then back
down to end in Memory Grove. I lined up in the very front, right on the starting
line, or at least somewhere near where it will be in 3 months. The voices in my
head yelled "go" and I was off. This course starts with a short but steepish
incline followed by a mile of gentle incline, then a half mile of a bit steeper
incline. After the turnaround it's all down hill to the finish. I started strong
and took the lead. I held the lead for the whole race to finish 1st in my age
group, 1st masters runner, 1st male, and 1st overall. Unfortunately I was also
last in my age group, last masters runner, last male runner, and last overall.
Here are my splits:
mile 1 - 6:46-171bpm uphill.
mile 2 - 6:41-171bpm
steeper uphill followed by steeper downhill.
mile 3 - 5:58-175bpm bombing
downhill.
mile .1- 5:46-177bpm
And now the punchline, my final Garmin
time was 20:00!    Exactly the same
as my 5k PR and exactly they same as Huans' Garmin time at his Turkey Trot. I
still haven't run a sub 20 5k. Hoping that I hit the stop button a second too
late, I tried to check the official results but they won't be posted for another
3 months! 
Note: I'm not sure if this course is faster or slower than a flat 5k. On
an out and back course I don't think you can recover speed lost going uphill
when going downhill. However this course has a net elevation loss, so it very
well could be faster than flat.
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