AM - 7.5 miles. Turkey Trot Tune-Up 5K at the Highland Track. Another fun morning... we had seven runners (and three spectators) this time. Luckily the rain held off, although I think everyone would agree that the wind was pretty tough to deal with. I decided to just go out at 5K goal pace and see how it felt. First mile was 4:48. My legs felt really good, and sensing that Fritz was behind me for the first couple laps definitely helped. But the wind on the backstretch (actually for about a 150m stretch) really slowed things down, so after 5 laps I decided to scale back the effort. I knew it wasn't going to be a PR day (James thought the 15+ mph winds cost us about 20+ seconds, and he is REALLY good at math, so I'll take his word on that), so there was no point in going all-out with next weekend's race being slightly more important :-) Second mile was 4:58, the third was 5:04, then 36 seconds for the last 200m (DNK - did not kick!). Finishing time was 15:26.4. The somewhat official results were... Jake 15:26.4
Fritz 16:38.1
James 16:47.5
Andrea 17:58.0
Bryan 18:07.2
Chad 18:58.8
Sandy 19:09.8 Allie was awesome enough to be the official starter and photographer again. We need to get her a gun to start the race next time. Here is a slideshow of the photos... They can also be found here. Not nearly my fastest 5K, but I got what I needed out of this run - a harder effort that will help me stay sharp, and will make marathon pace feel so much easier and sustainable. It is interesting to hear people's opinions regarding the "short race before a longer race" strategy. Some are strongly opposed to it, feeling that it takes something away from the target race. I think that if you can't recover from a 5K in a day, then you aren't in good enough shape to run a good marathon anyways. I've done it before every half-marathon/marathon this year, and so far the results have been good. Next year I really want to attack the 5K distance and significantly bring down my PR. But right now my heart is 100% in the marathon, and its the only distance I really care about being able to crush at this point. I hope this upcoming week just flies by! PM - 3 miles shakeout. Went to the movies this afternoon... saw Footloose... I feel like that high school had a disproportionate number of exceptional dancers compared to the average school. It did not remind me of my high school experience at all! :-)
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