After yesterday's 17 miler I hadn't even planned on running today much less running a race but my wife and daughters were off doing different things and I was left with some free time on my hands. They had a Sunday night race in town because of labor day tomorrow so I decided to jump in it. I did a 1.5 mile warmup and my legs felt pretty tired. It was a little better at the end of the warmup but I didn't know what to expect. I decided to just go out at around 6:15 pace and see how long I could hold it. I got off to a good start and here are my splits:
1st - 6:10
2nd - 6:25
3rd - 6:25
4th - 6:04
The second mile was into the wind and had a long gentle rise to it. My legs were feeling pretty weak so I was concerned I wouldn't be able to hold it. Around 2.5 miles there were two guys up ahead of me and I noticed that I was gaining on them slowly. I just focused on them and set out to catch them. I started feeling a little better around this point as well and felt like I was picking up the pace. At around 3 miles I caught one of the guys and was gaining on the other one. The last mile I just started pushing as hard as I could trying to catch the other guy. I finally caught him at around 3.75 and kept running hard past him so he wouldn't come back on me. Based on how I finished the last mile I think I might have been able to push the 2nd and 3rd miles harder. This is around a 1 min PR for me but I have only ran 4 mile races a couple of other times. I am very happy with the result considering the 17 miler yesterday and that last week was my highest mileage week of the year. | 