Lined up right behind the first row which was great as I didn't have to worry to much about having to pace people. Some people went out of the gate quick as I noticed that I was running right around 6:00/mile pace the first quarter mile and was still having some people get ahead of me. I slowed myself down and settled into around a 6:20/mile pace. By the end of the first mile, I was starting to reel in people. There were a lot of young runners who started out quick and started fading but kept myself motivated by racing a younger guy wearing an ironman shirt and stars-and-stripes tights. Passed him about a mile through along with a high school female. They both passed me back in less than a quarter mile as I caught up to the next runner and slowed a bit. Passed the girl back then the stars/stripes guy. At Mile 2, I noticed I was right around 12:40 elapsed time and had a shot sub-20 minutes. Stars/Stripes guy passed me back on the uphill bridge near Mile 3, but I re-passed him on the downhill and never saw him again. Managed to track down one more guy and turned for finish straight with under 100m to go and could see the clock counting down with a little over 19 minutes. I was cramping but tried to relax and hold on as I had perfect weather and a fast course so a PR was possible. One guy managed to out-sprint me on the finish straight but I came in just under the 20:00 mark with an official time of 19:54 (6:20/mile pace)

Not much - PR race by about 20 seconds so I cannot complain. My Garmin shows I slowed down a bit near the water stations and I just have to mentally get past that. I probably had another 5 seconds or so max to squeeze out given that I stayed off running the last week and I had the slightest tightness on my hamstring around Mile 2. Fortunately, it did not get worse.

Very happy as this is 2 races out of 2 that I finished first in my age group (and also was within the Top 1% overall

Walked around and jogged to car to get jacket and gloves as it was getting cold. Had recovery shake. Normatec session at home afterwards


Injury during 5K race about a month ago that limited training. Will continue to focus on 5K but may stretch out a bit to 10K distance. Next race will likely be a 10K to see how long I can hold speed.


Probably one of the biggest if not the biggest 5k/15K race in Dallas (definitely the biggest that is shorter than a half-marathon) with about 13K participants (both 5K and 10K). Just a bit bummed there were no Age Group awards though I have to say that the nice hoodie that was part of registration was probably better than a medal (they still showed AG results online anyway)!