This was my first 5k race in about 5 years. I had a good month or two of training earlier in the season under my belt. However, we had our first child on March 28th and the last month in a half has been filled will sporadic work outs. My goal for this race was to get a general idea of where my fitness was. Prior to the race I told myself that I would be happy with a time between 21 and 22 minutes.
This is a fairly large local race and the ability of the participants varies quite a bit. There are a lot of first times and families, but also quite a few college/competitive runners. I lined up towards the front of the pack in an attempt to avoid having to weave in and out of the families for the first mile or so.
The gun fired and we got off to a quick down hill start, probably around a 5 minute mile pace for the first ¼ mile or so. I told myself to slow down and not get sucked into running too fast at the start. I slow my pace down to around a 6:30 pace and out of no where a 12 year old girl with pink knee high socks flies by me. She couldn’t have been more than four and a half feet tall and she was cooking. I was a little bewildered, but thought to myself “I’ll catch you sooner or later.” About 200 yards down the road I saw what must have been her grandmother cheering for her ringing a cow bell. She sprinted past her grandmother and then began to slow down to a fast walk. I passed her. Mission one, don’t get beat by a 12 year old girl, complete.
At about the half mile mark I fell into a nice rhythm right behind a nice pace booty. The pace was comfortable, the view was nice and I was feeling good. I came across mile one at 6:22. I knew that was faster than what I had planned, but nothing I could do about it now besides keeping it in check. The next half mile felt good and my pace was strong.
The next mile (1.5-2.5) was fairly flat and I just continued to run with the group I was with. Looking back at the race, this was the point where I started to zone out a little bit and lose concentration. I let my pace slip and was happy just cruising along. The last half mile was uphill into the wind. I realized that I had a little too much left so I started to push it and my legs felt good. In the last few hundred yards I felt that my lungs gave out before my legs. I ended up coming across the line in 21:07.


1. I need to spend more time at or below race pace. I used to be able to instinctively tell what pace I was running at. I haven’t logged enough miles this year to be able to do that yet, which hurt my pacing.
2. If I am going to actually race a race I need to commit to it and focus on racing the entire race. In the middle of the race I got into a comfortable pace and didn’t push myself like I needed to. No matter how good the view is I am giving up, I can’t let myself just go with the pack.
3. I should probably eat a little more prior to the race. I got a little hungry about a mile into the race.
4. This is personal to me, I need to HTFU and run a sub 20 5K. I know this is silly and is an arbitrary line drawn in the sand. That being said, I break up the 5K world into three sections, joggers, runners and racers. If I am going to be doing 5Ks I want to be a racer, not a jogger, not a runner. For me that distinction between runner and racer starts to change once I go sub 20 and I’ll feel like I can be a “racer” once I am down into the mid to low 18s. I guess now I have a goal for the rest of the season.