I didn't really know what to expect for this race. My training has been exceptionally lousy lately, virtually no speed workouts and much lower mileage than what I wanted for the summer. I don't really know what has been going on with my training. I haven't been injured or sick. I just haven't had the drive or the desire to really run a lot. I blame a lot of it on the heat and the humidity and the abundance of thunderstorms, but at some point, I just need to get out and run more. Especially if I want to have a good performance at the Space Coast marathon at the end of November.
Maybe running some races again will get my competitive juices flowing and I'll run more miles and more workouts throughout the week.
So, as far as the race today, I was just hoping to break 19 minutes. Actually, that was the worst I wanted to do. I was going to go out and try to run around 6 minute miles and see how that felt and then adjust from there. That would put me around 18:30-18:40. Last year, I ran 18:20.
After some words from the TrackShack owners, John and Betsy, about this being the 37th year of business for TrackShack and 22 years of the Celebration of Running 5K (Wow!), the national anthem was played and we lined up for the start.
The start heads south down Alden road for the first half mile, and it has a pretty good drop in elevation. So, the start was pretty quick, which was nice, but the bad part is the finish comes back through Alden. That hill doesn't seem like much right now, but it'll probably suck real bad at mile 3.
I started out the first 1/4 mile at 5:30 pace, way too fast! That damn downhill...
I got myself under control and went through the first mile at 5:50. I felt pretty good at this point, but the heat was already getting to me. I just wanted to be done at this point, before I felt like death.
We passed the Track Shack store with a DJ out front and then ended up on a trail for a bit. Then we hit the 2 mile marker. I went through the marker at 11:50, which was a 6 minute mile. My garmin gave my split as 5:58. Either way, I was slowing down too much.
I really didn't know how much more I had in me. We got off the trail and went through a water station. I think this was around 1/4 mile into the last mile and I was seriously considering walking at this point. I think the way I pushed through this point was some weird reasoning that I would be on the course longer if I started walking, so I should just keep running and try to push the pace a bit.
So, that's what I did. I focused on some people ahead of me and just started to try to reel them in. And, it was working. I was passing people! We turned right onto Alden and I could see the 3 mile marker off in the distance at the top of the hill. I just focused on not slowing down up the hill. I made it up the hill, one more right turn and there was the finish! I finished strong and it was over! Thank God!
My time was 18:12, and my last mile was 5:46! I finished 21st overall and 4th in my age group. I'm pretty happy with my overall time. It's faster than my race last year. But, I'm really ecstatic about having such a negative split on my last mile. Even with my pretty sorry training, I haven't lost much fitness since my last 5K way back on February 15th. The weather was 20 degrees colder for that run, so considering the heat, I think these two performances are pretty similar.
Below is my pace graph from Smashrun, the shaded part is my fastest mile of the run at 5:41. Here's my smashrun entry: http://smashrun.com/woodardb/run/2014/8
Hopefully, this race will spur me on to better training. Once again, Track Shack did an outstanding job with the race. As they always do. I'm looking forward to the next race in the series in September. And, I'll be back next year to run this race again.
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