Robbie's Run 5K today, felt good and happy to improve over last 5K where I did 20:32.
Managed to get 19:49 which was good for 4th place overall (3rd male) and 1st place masters. Race was put on by Stider Keith who works at Word of Life where the race was held. My first time being there, it's a beautiful campus with a youth summer camp. Race was to raise scholarship money to send kids to camp.
Warmed up with some easy jogging and three 30 second strides up to race pace, then had about 5 minutes to hang out at the start line waiting for the race. Lined up in the second row. I had one PowerBar espresso flavored gel which I found in my laptop bag (must have been there for an emergency situation) which I took about 10 minutes before the race.
There was a good sized group ahead of me for about the first 1/3 mile or so as I slowly caught up to the smaller pack that was forming. Anthony took off quickly and was in the lead for about the first half mile. I caught up to him just after the end of the first mile but wasn't sure if I'd be able to put any distance on him. At this point there was a small lead pack of three people up ahead - Jacki Wachtel (who is flying to Boston on Sunday night), Bret (Keith's early 20's son), and a teenager. I pretty much focused on Jacki and stayed at a fairly even distance back from her for about the first two miles, it was kind of like having a pacer.
At one point I was starting to gain on Bret, maybe around 2.6 or 2.7 miles, but then he got some speed back and put some distance between us. I was worried about Anthony coming up behind me (he runs a lot of miles, has consistently been getting PRs). My third mile was looking like it might end up being slower than 6:30 but I gained back some speed as it was drawing to an end and then kept on accelarating as I approached the finish line, doing the last 0.15 (garmin, pretty close) at 5:00 pace (I think that is my fastest kick).
Splits were: 6:17, 6:23, 6:24, 0:45 (0.15 @ 5:00)
Masters award prize was a large jar of Dixie's Honey
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