ez peasy recovery run in the rain

So I have been thinking that it might be time to PR my 5k time.  Right now I have lots of run fitness and pretty fresh legs before I get back into heavy training for Disney.  So I looked at what races were on the schedule and saw the Fall Classic.  What I didn't initial realize is that it was a hilly and challenging course. However I set out to PR and knew I would feel better about it because I would earn it.  My goals for today were 1. to PR, 2. to race a sub 7 pace, 3. to win my age group.  I got all three! Won my age group and finished 12th (out of total of 118) overall.  Started out just a bit behind lead group of about 15.  Pretty much held that spot until final mile, passed a couple of guys and passed second place woman with about 1/2 mile to go.  In the last quarter mile tried to catch two guys in front of me, caught one (finished ahead by 2 sec) but couldn't quite catch the second one (he beat me by 2 seconds).  No splits but pace was pretty even throughout.  Very rewarding and nice to PR in a marathon and 5k (especially this course) in same month.

Plan was to do hilly 10 mile route.  Used to do this route  a lot in earlier days, but got frightened of it when my IT band blew up on it. Challenging route with plenty of beefy hills.  Had no Garmin so I had to guess on distance and turned around where I thought 5 mile mark was.  When I got home I adjusted distance because thought this was more in line with actual pace.  Doesn't really matter though because this was about getting out on a beautiful fall day, working hard and enjoying the spectacular views of the changing colors on the rolling hills...oh, and as always, negative splitting. :)

nasty, windy, rainy night, didn't keep me from enjoying this easier pace run.  Wind at my back on return trip, helped the mood.

I REALLY do want to finish that race report.  Hopefully tonight.

After months of steady easier pace runs, I'm enjoying burning off the energy with these tempo runs.  While I am pushing the pace on these, I am not red-lining. Just for the fun of it.