My neighborhood 5K was this morning. It was to kick of our arts festival. I haven't done this one since 2003 or 2004, when I was happy to run a 22:something. These races get like 150-200 people and there isn't too much competition, but there is always a guy cherry picking for the win. So usually somebody gets right around 16:30-17:30 for the win. I just wanted to get in some speed work and racing so I didn't get too uptight about it. I just lined up in the front row. Of course we started 10 or so minutes late, which messed up my warmup. I started in 3rd place but I picked off one guy in the first mile on a BIG steep uphill. He fell off pretty quickly and I didn't hear his feet slapping at all or cheering behind me. So from there, I just chased the leader. He was faster. I made up a few feet on some of the hills, but he had faster turnover and gapped me even more in the last mile. I finished pretty well redlined, which is good. Actually, I was pretty well redlined from the start. I'm a lot happier with this race than the last two I've done. I'm not sure if it is me or the conditions but I don't care. I'm very happy and surprised with this result. My hamstring didn't give me any trouble at all - yea! I was about 20 sec behind the first place guy. I am tired of finishing in 2nd, but I just need to get faster.
mile 1 - 5:34 mile 2 and 3- ? I didn't want to take the time to focus on the watch
finish 17:15 - A 16 second PR!!! It is great to run in cool weather with low humidity. ave pace 5:34 (I can't believe I didn't slow at all. I did map the run on mapmyrun and it comes out right, so it wasn't short - yea!)
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