I decided to run this 5K to establish my base for my 5k training. I ran this race last year and ran a 20:19 so today was a pretty good improvement over that time. I'm almost embarrassed to post my splits as I did a terrible job at managing my pace. The course is an out an back so it measures exastly 3.1 miles on the Garmin. Now I can at least say I have a legitimate 19:xx 5K time. The weather was nasty with thunderstorms (raining) the whole time. With the bad weather the race was poorly attended. I think it was actually much nicer than last year when it was very hot. I won a cool trophy and I will post a picture next week when I get back to a "real" computer. They also gave nice Tech T-shirts (unexpected as last year they gave really cheap cotton T's.) The course has one small hill at the start but the rest is just slightly rising or dropping slopes. The 3rd mile again seemed harder than it should have for the elevation change. At the start the race I felt really light on my feet. As there weren't many "fast" runners I went out with about 6-8 runners for the first .25-.5 mile. At that point all but 4 of us had already dropped back. After about a mile the top two guys had established a lead and I knew I wouldn't be able to catch them. The third guy was 30-40 yards ahead of me so I set my sights on him. All three of these guys were in their 30's. I ran with the 3rd guy throughout the race, pretty much neck and neck after the first mile. Mile 1 came in at 5:58 - As I was running this mile I was thinking, "I can hold this pace for the whole race" :-) Mile 2 came in at 6:31 - I realized I couldn't maintain a sub 6:00 mile for the rest of the race. I actually didn't realize I had slowed down that much until the beeper went off and I looked at the time. Mile 3 came in at 6:46 - Ridiculous! How can I run a Half Marathon at an avg. 6:53 pace and run the third mile of a 5K at 6:46....Ahhhh! Last .1 came in at 29 seconds - I did have a good kick but I was hurting quite a bit at this time. I was actually ahead of the #3 guy 50 yards out but was running on the edge of the pavement and slipped off. It was about a 6-8" drop, I almost fell down and the guy passed me. I regained my composure and almost caught him at the end. (He beat me by 1 second.) Things I learned: I am a 19 second 5K'er now I can run a 18 second 5K My max HR is truly 180 BPM I am horrible at running by feel I think I'll keep running for a while longer I like to run fast (I was clipping along on part of the first mile at a 5:00 pace and it felt good. I maintained a 4:15 pace for a lot of the last .107 mile.) I still have a kick, even when I feel like I'm spent. Oh....And my aerobic conditioning really stinks and holds me back! Overall time: 19:42 1st in Master's Division 4th Overall But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”
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