Dam to Dam 5k today, decided to drop from the half to the 5k as my training has not really been conducive to a half, this ended up being a really good call. Got up around 6 for a 9:30 start--drove down to the parking garage on 9th and locust, went and watched the elites finish the half- 1:04:xx was the winner, pretty quick, warmed up for a little under 2 miles, did some strides and a burnout to get my legs broken in and ready for the 5k, made the decision to set my watch to km instead of miles so that I could get more frequent updates on my pace, goal was 3:30s each time (17:30 pace) got out easy and felt pretty relaxed, 3:22 at the first k, much faster than anticipated, but it felt fine, was at about 5:21 at the mile, 3:26 for the 2nd k, 3:30 for the 3rd k, started to pull away from the guy i had been running with and realized I was in 5th place, there are about 3000 runners in this race and so I was not expecting a top 5, goal was to keep it together and try to run down the 4th place runner--vic morales, a guy I have raced many times before, 4th k was 3:31, we were fully with the half marathon walk/joggers now and so the course was packed, pretty straight course, so just a few tangents that i didnt quite get, last k was 3:36, but i still wasn't finished, something in the neighborhood of 15 seconds leftover (.07k roughly) the course probably wasnt long, i just wasn't able to get a good tangent run given the runners ahead, regardless, 17:38 for the 5k, a really good effort that I am pleased with. got a medal for getting 3rd in my age group--still cant believe I got 5th in this prestigious event. pretty cool! 4 mile cool down.
Time update: official time was 17:38, one second faster. Every second counts! brings avg pace from 5:41 to 5:40
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