Decided to run a local 5k today as I am in Phoenix and wanted to get some faster stuff in. 2 mile warmup, then go started a good 5 minutes late. started with a small pack, but I led from pretty much 400 meters in. I settled into my pace and just rolled the rest of the race. Had no mile markers so i had no idea where I was at any point. I just set cruise on a hard pace and worked on my stride. I was amazed at how smooth and easy the run felt. I am in pretty good shape because it felt like a hard tempo effort and nothing more. I forgot how much I missed leading and winnignr aces, even small local ones. I came through the finish and clocked at 17:20 on my watch. I won by a little less than 2 minutes, which is suprising given this race is the ASU homecoming race and I figured some good local runners would show up. Regardless, phoenix did not dissapoint. Weather was great--sun just set almost right as the gun went off and the 90 degree heat of the day quickly cooled and you could feel the cooling coming in as night fell, very comfortable 85 or so for most of the race with low humidity, which made it feel cooler. Afterwards, I ran all the way around the ASU west campus, which was a little over 3 miles, 8.3 total today. This was a nice check of where I am because I havent done any speed and I figured under 18 would be good, but I will take 17:20 all day and i hope to keep improving. Not sure if I won anything for winning, i bolted after the race so I could watch game 7 of the world series.
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