The sun rose and it soon became very warm. The high today is 94 degrees. The plan for today was to use this race as an exercise in patience in pacing. I was mostly successful.
My plan was to run these splits for six miles in an ideal race: 5:15, 5:15, 5:10, 5:10, 5:05, 5:05. Of course I was not factoring in hills and 180 degree turns. George told me that the second half would be tough in the heat so he told me to just go out in 5:30! It's a good thing I listened because after mile 2.5 I was running by myself for the rest of the race, but I burried a Pacers guy pretty good, passing him strongly after mile 3.5 or so when the hilly section started.
I ended up recording the following splits for today: 5:28, 5:18, 5:06, 5:16, 5:07, 5:17 (GPS splits, which recorded a 6.25 mile course). Not bad. I was only tired in the last mile and I did a good job of pacing correctly and factoring in the conditions today. Of course it does occur to me that 5:16-19 average pace is my tempo pace on a cool day on a flat track. I'm pretty happy with it given the conditions. Now I just have 3 5Ks left in my season and the good news is 5Ks are short and less affected by DC summer humidity.
It's funny to note last year the top 5 all received cash awards. This year I got a certificate for 2nd place while first place got a $50 gift card. It's ok though, I received a comped entry for the race.
Results
PM: 4 easy in the oven
| 