Road back from FAT!!!!!

Did my first race today with the plan of just seeing where my fitness was. Met Riley and Ben and headed out together. We met Ken and Steve Shepard at the course and started our warm up. We did about a 4 mile warm up with some strides. Once the race started Riley was off like a gunshot. I was unsure what pace to run so I kinda tucked in and ran behind Ken and Ben. The first mile felt fast and smooth but when I looked at my watch at the Marked mile it was 5:05 and I kinda freaked out a little. I mean my fasted mile since coming back was like 5:35 During a tempo run and I am in the middle of my biggest mileage week too. I kinda psyched myself out a bit and really didn't push as hard as I could have. Have to relearn the going into pain and still running fast mentality. I reasserted myself with about half of a mile to go and started to push the pace. I made up a lot of ground on Steve and ran a good time for a month and a half of training and I remember when I signed up that I would have been happy with 17:45. It was a good fitness test and I feel really motivated to get faster because I really hate to get my butt kicked like that. Like a really hate it but I know what I have to do to get back where I need to be. We did like another 3.5 or so cool down. Really happy with my progression and I know just need to keep going at it and I will do it. Have the best training group anyone could ask for.