When the gun went off I started near the front of the pack. I kept up with the lead pack for about a quarter of a mile before settling into a more reasonable pace. My Garmin alarmed as I hit the first mile at 6:50. Pretty good, pretty good. I expected to run a consistent 7:00 - 7:05 pace for the whole race, so this gave me a little bit of a cushion. About a tenth of a mile later I looked down and saw my right shoelace flapping on the ground with each stride. I was wearing my new Asics 2120s, which have shorter laces than my 2110s. And because the laces were shorter, I didn't double knot them, as I have usually done with my other running shoes. This came back to bite me as I had to stop to retie the lace after it came loose. About another tenth of a mile later the course made a left turn, and we ran straight into a stiff icy headwind. Mile 2 alarmed at 14:17, a 7:27 pace for the second mile. Wow, stopping to retie my shoe really cost me. Okay, I figured I needed to pick it up from here to hit my goal. Well, that icy headwind, which stayed with us until almost the 3 mile mark had other ideas, as it took considerable effort to try to maintain your pace running into it. I hit the 3 mile mark at 21:37, a 7:20 pace for the third mile. A quick mental calculation made me realize that I would have to do the last .11 mile in 23 seconds (which wasn't going to happen) to hit my goal. I pushed the pace anyway, and finished in 40 seconds, which was a 6:28 pace for that last little piece.

Double knot my shoes; this was a big lesson learned. According to the Garmin, I was completely stopped for 5 seconds of the race. The slowing down and starting up again after tying my shoe also cost a couple more seconds. Couldn't do anything about the wind. Weather.com said we had 15 mph winds, so I'm guessing the headwind we ran into was around that.

Made the walk from the finish line back into the hall for the refreshments and the award ceremony.


My shoe coming untied and the icy headwind. More speedwork would help also.


I was pretty annoyed at not hitting my goal. I believe a nicer day (no or very little wind) and a shoelace that remained tied would have resulted in me breaking that 22:00 barrier. However, the offical results say 22:17, so the goal remains until my next 5K race, scheduled for early May.