Wow, let's just say this run was super unexpected and I am very, very happy. It is my first official 5k (certified course!) under 19, and it wasn't the easiest course either. It was also a competitive race in our grand prix series and I was able to come away with a win. I have felt crappy for a long time now, and finally something clicked Thursday and my legs didn't feel tired as soon as I started. I was hoping that would carry on to this week and it really did. The ladies got to start 5 minutes before the men, and my friend Micah took the lead right away. She has been having great workouts and should run 18:30 or so on a good day. I decided to just stay as close as possible for as long as I could so that I could end up with a decent time (I was thinking 19:30ish). After Micah was me and a woman named Sarah (a 46 year old ex-olympic speed skater). We didn't see anyone else the entire race. Sarah was awesome, she is such a good competitor. We took turns pulling each other up the hills and slowly caught up to Micah who had a 10 second lead during most of the race. Around 2 miles I yelled at Micah to keep it up but it was obvious she was getting tired. We caught her and passed her around 2.5. Sarah said something along the lines of "you go for it" as we continued to push the pace and she fell back just the slightest. So I pushed with everything I had (mostly fear), turned a corner and saw the clock at 18:40. I didn't see anything else from then on, it was just me, the finish line, and the clock. I crossed right as the clock was turning to 19, so I wasn't sure if I got it or not. I went back to the people taking the splits, and they said it was 18:59.89. While on the results page it will be rounded up to 19, I am definitely taking it as a sub-19, because the official time said it was! Sarah finished only a second or two behind me (which is a little scary, I had no idea she was there!) and Micah another 5-10 seconds behind her. A lot of people came up to me after the race saying things like "not to sound rude, but I didn't see that one coming." I'll take it as a compliment :) This was one of my best races ever, and should pretty much clinch the grand prix series for me as long as I show up for the last two races. I really needed a race like this to get me back into the spirit of running again. Splits: 6:06, 6:11 (the hilly mile), 6:04 | 