I wasn't expecting a whole lot for this race, and I would have been happy breaking 20 minutes, considering that I slacked off since finishing IMLP in 2008 and have only recently started training regularly again.

I took off fairly hard at the start, and after passing about a dozen high school kids who thought they belonged in the front, settled into about ninth or tenth place. Hit the first mile at 5:58, which was surprising since the first mile was a gradual uphill. The second mile included a fairly steep but short hill, where I passed a few guys, and at the turnaround I had moved up to seventh. In the third mile I started reeling in the three guys ahead of me, two of which turned out to be in my AG, and with about a half mile left I had moved up to fourth overall. Down the homestretch I knew that the three guys ahead were out of reach, but I pushed it hard to the line as I became very aware of another guy sprinting to catch me. I managed to just hold him off.

Mile splits: 5:58, 6:20, 6:20.

I'm pretty happy with how things went. My 5k PR is 18:24, so this wasn't too bad considering how I'm just getting back into regular training. I'm shooting for sub-18 at a Thanksgiving Day 5k, so today definitely made me think that I can reach that goal.