Bengal Run 5k Race Report: Pre-race: The race is a fast flat 5 in the City and I was anxious to see how my fitness was doing. Woke up with some chest congestion and I've been dealing with hurt lower legs the last week. It was pretty cold out too! It was about 33 degrees and a little windy at the start. The Race: Once again I manage to have Yahoos jump in front of my right before the gun. I was worried when they were questioning why only half of their clan had chips and what they did. Managed to push through them at the start. Mile 1 (5:58). Started a little fast. Covered the first 0.75 at about 5:45 pace. Felt pretty of but was coughing due to congestion. Mile 2 (6:14). Towards the end of the first mile I was really letting the pace drop to well over 6:00 but a group of 2 passed me and I latched onto them the best I could and helped pull the pace back to something ok. Mile 3 (6:08). Got settled and felt a lot better than mile 2 but the burn was starting to set in. Caught a couple people but a couple got away from me. 0.1 finish (36 sec). Felt strong and kicked it in and then layed on the ground
Finished 25th overall and 5th in the 25-29 age group. Pretty disappointed and discouraged, I was aiming for closer to 18:36. But I couldn't hold to pull it out. I was thinking that maybe I should rethink my idea of a fast marathon in the fall and work on getting me short race speed back to where it was. The marathon and half-marathon workouts are letting my short speed really lack. The half marathon I'm training for is about 4 weeks away and I think I'm going to go for a stretch and aim for 1:25. After that, I was looking at the race schedules and thinking of running a 5k in mid-july, a mile race in August, and our 8k Turkey Trot as my A races for the season. I think I'm going to scrap running my October marathon and then if I get into Boston with my 3:04:40 I'll have that to start training for towards the end of the year. Until then I'll focus on keeping my weekly mileage around 50+ to build a good base while doing some speedwork for shorter races and see if I can get my 5k to sub 18 and my 8k to sub 30 again. Coming into the finisher shoot
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