SlimCache

Thought I might hammer out a little race report on Sunday's 5K. Going into it I was feeling really good knowing that Sunday's weigh-in had brought a weight loss of 1.2 pounds. Way to start the morning off right. I was also quite confident that I would pull a PR since I've only done two other races, one of which was WWFoR. Being that that's a virtual race I went with my previous record set of 33:43 which was last fall. I've been running quite a bit since then and was pretty sure I had this one nailed but didn't want to get overconfident. Honestly I was still a little nervous but not sure why.

Electric atmosphere. More people than I've seen in one place. I guess that's primarily because I haven't run that many races. That could also explain how I can still manage to feel completely alone in a large crowd of people. I know running is a social sport but really just haven't gotten into that aspect of it yet. Maybe I should pin a sign to my back saying 'Portions of this race will be recorded and posted on RuncastTV' just to start conversations.

Starting out I was quite sure I was pulling out too fast. It's a short race though, and I should be able to sustain this pace for 3 miles right? I decided to rein it in slightly. Somehow a race atmosphere gets the best of me, just like most other runners I've talked to. First mile was done in 8:43. That's an unheard of pace for me. Wasn't sure I could keep that up. Until the 2nd mile marker. I didn't track my own splits but my time at mile 2 was 17:33. I was sustaining! Incredible! The second mile was the real slog out of all of them too. I hardly even remember mile 3. Maybe it was just the buzz. It felt pretty nice being the one to do the passing rather than being passed for a change. Yup, I've climbed the ranks from the waaaayyyy back of the middle of the pack to a bona fide midpacker.

I even managed to muster up a sprint at the end. I wondered about the couthe of this. Aren't you supposed to pour it on at the end? I saw no one else attempting the hard push that I did. I wondered what the other racers would think of this display. Would they think I think myself flashy? No, it's just that I've been integrating strides into the end of every workout lately.

I dragged my tired butt across the line in 26:52. My best practice run recently was 28:06 so honestly I was just hoping to come up with a time comparable to that. A PR is a great feeling. I wasn't really competing against anyone out there in particular except myself. That's evident in the final results where I placed 47th out of 60 in my age group, and 340th overall. How can I feel so satisfied having come in 340th? It's pretty easy actually.