I headed out to Tooele (which is where I'm originally from) today to visit family and decided to run there 5k that is held in tandem with their parade. I don't run a lot of 5ks and quite frankly, I'm a bit scared of them. Half marathons put me right on that edge of being very uncomfortable, and 10ks and 5ks put me way, way over the edge. I should probably do more of these shorter races. Anyways, since I don't run a lot of these, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The course seems pretty accurate and mile 1 has some pretty good downhill on it. Crossed mile 1 at 5:15 and immediately got a bit scared, but I was actually doing okay. Mile 2 puts you on to the parade route, which is where the race stays all the way to the finish. The parade route is a great distraction because it provides for some great "people watching" while running. It is still downhill, but not nearly as much as the first mile. I had eventually passed all those that started off way too fast, and was now behind about 6-7 people, who were all high school kids. Crossed mile 2 at 5:23 (these are probably the 2 fastest, consecutive miles of my life). The leaders were probably about 30 seconds ahead, but I had one kid right in front of me. I knew I was probably in trouble for mile 3 as it levels out quite a bit and then switches to a mild uphill for the final half to three-quarters of a mile. I knew I was going to struggle on this part and that going out too fast was going to come back to bite me. Sure enough, mile 3 was 6:17 and then the last part took me 35 seconds. I completely died at the end and never was able to catch up to the kid who was in front of me for most of the last 2 miles. Anyways, the winner had to have been right around 16:30ish. Like I mentioned, everyone that finished in front of me was in high school. They all looked like they rolled out of bed and could run that fast every morning if they wanted without much trouble. But I was quite pleased with how well I ran. Average pace for the race was 5:40 and never in a million years did I ever think I would ever run that fast in any race. Makes me want to keep working to get faster. For the most part, I felt somewhat smooth during the first 2 miles, but as I mentioned, kind of fell apart the last mile. Overall, a good run and day (pretty hot during the run as well).
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