I ran a Thanksgiving 5k today (2,000 total people ran the race), and did so in 16:20. This time was slow for a couple of reasons. First, there was wind and lots of it. At times, I was pushed so hard that it felt like I was staying in the same place when I was really kicking. Second, I decided to "hang with the pack" at the beginning to scout out how to approach the last two miles. Since the rest of the pack was going slow, I was stuck with them. After a mile, I saw that my mile spit was slow (5:30) and decided to pull down the trigger. Me and one other runner (a 2:30 runner in the Denver marathon) branched out from the rest of the field. I could hear him breathing heavily, so I decided to turn it up another notch. Within two or three minutes, he had enough and dropped back. I picked up the pace as the race went on (finishing around a 5:10 clip), but the wind killed any kind of real momentum I had. Although this time is "slow" for me, I would presume that without wind I could have achieved sub 15:30. This sounds like a large time difference, but the wind really did me in, especially since I had no one to draft behind. I was happy, however to win the race, especially since I saw some strong runners at the starting line. My miles really helped me today. I had the mental and physical power to increase the speed when it really counted. Without that, who knows if I would have won. | 