I basically started the race in 3rd place. There was a big hill right away, and I moved to 2nd place there. That was easy. Caught the 1st place guy maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of a mile into the race. I debated whether to just shadow him or forge ahead, and ultimately I decided to pass him because he wasn't going as fast as I wanted. We were maybe 4 or 5 minutes into the race at this point. I moved into 1st place, right behind a gigantic 5-vehicle escort (2 motorcycles, 2 bicycles, and a gas powered golf cart thing). I was sucking exhaust for the rest of the race, because these guys wanted to stay close. At this point I decided to throw away my sub-18 goal and just focus on winning the race instead. Sizing up the competition in the first few minutes of the race slowed me down a bit anyway.

Anyway, I increased the pace on a long flat section to open up a good lead on the next guy. It was a couple hundred yards. One of the bicycles went back to guide him. I wished the golf cart would go instead. Once I had that margin established, it was just a tempo run the rest of the way. The final mile and half was on a bike path, and all those vehicles had trouble getting through certain sections, so I slowed way down a few times for them. Like, down to jogging pace. I passed them once but they passed me back. I wanted to tell them that I knew the course so they could go away, but I didn't. I would have been really ticked off about the exhaust and the change in pace if the 2nd place guy was closer to me. But, he wasn't, so I could accept these inconveniences.

Cruised to the finish just barely under 19 minutes, and yes it's technically a course record. I'm not really happy with the time, because it means I still haven't had a fast 5K this year. I'm worried that my fast days are behind me, so I want to be able to really test myself in a race. But today just wasn't that race. The 2nd place guy finished exactly one minute behind me.

I have to admit it felt good to break the tape. I've never flat-out won a race before. I almost didn't know how to pose at the end.

Splits:
Miles 1,2: 12:22 (yikes, too slow)
Mile 3: 5:55 (includes slowing for the vehicles, so it's not bad)
Last 0.1: 0:41

If I want to go my fastest, I have to ignore the other runners at the beginning of the race and push harder right from the start.

Ran another 20 minutes. My legs felt pretty good.

Came back, had a beer, watched the half marathon winners come in, then decided it was freezing outside so I ran home.


I just wasn't pushing to the limit.


The course is pretty easy. It has one short but steep hill at the beginning, but once you get over that it's flat the rest of the way. About half of the course is on a road exposed to the sun (if it's out) and then the other half is on a shaded bike path.

It was a good race, especially considering it was its first year. My only criticism is with the escorts at the front of the race. There were 5 vehicles, and they really only needed one. And they stayed so close that I was huffing exhaust the whole race. And they had to slow down for some bottlenecks on the bike path and that made me have to slow down. They just need to get rid of some of those escorts and the race will be fantastic.