Racing Short

Yesterday,  I raced a 5k.  I am considering calling it my first official 5k.  I have run the distance in a "race" environment a total of 6 times: (Including yesterday)

2010- Beat Coach Pete Fun Run - Unofficially timed, 22 minutes or so
2010 - Light the Night 5k Fun Run - Unofficially timed, 20:36
2011 - Beat Coach Pete Fun Run  - Unofficially timed, 25:14 (Ran in costumes as a group)
2011 - Light the Night 5k Fun Run - Unofficially timed, 20:12
2012 - New Years Day 5k - Officially timed, 37:36 (Paced Kifer in his first race)

Some friends from work decided that they wanted to run this race as a team, and so I decided to join and figured I would just hang out with everyone and not worry about time.  5k's are not on my radar in a competitive sense, so I was cool with this.  Then, April's boyfriend Jason issued a challenge to me that if I spotted him 3 minutes per mile plus an additional minute for the .10, he could beat me.  Jason is most certainly not a runner, and really not in any exceptional physical condition.  To be fair, it wasn't a fair challenge, but I am not one to back down.  At that point, I decided I would actually race the distance and shoot to break 20 minutes.  I haven't really been running a great deal since the Grasslands 50 mile and the Pickled Feet 24 hour failure, so I didn't know how successful I would be.  The fact that I have had some sort of tendonitis in my ankle bothering me wasn't going to make the undertaking any easier, not to mention that I have avoided mostly everything resembling speedwork for the last year and a half.

I'm never one to line up at the very front of the pack, but sometimes I wish I was.  I weasled my way nearly to the front, but still had probably 150-200 people in front of me.  Knowing that my fastest single mile I have run this year was about 5:55 and that I needed to average 6:26/mile to break 20 minutes, I decided to get through mile 1 in 6:45 and then just start pushing the speed as long as my legs and lungs would allow.  Once the race started, I began dodging people as best as I could, waiting for the crowd to thin out.  The first mile runs uphill on University Drive for probably .70 miles and I took advantage of this and passed maybe 70 people.  I came through mile 1 at 6:44, right on target.  I had to expend a bit more effort to dodge and pass the other runners, but no big deal.  I picked up the pace and kept passing more and more runners throughout the next rolling hill sections until mile 2.  I was still feeling really strong but tried to reel back and save it for a strong finish.  I got through mile 2 in 6:07.  I was feeling pretty strong, and so I started pushing and passing as many people as I could.  The last section is all flat through the zoo and I just kept running as well as I could.  I hit mile 3 at 5:51 and started running as fast as I could manage and set my sights on one final runner that I might be able to pass and I did so only 5 yards from the finish.  I finished the race in 19:11, good enough for 17th place overall, and 2nd in my division.  Pretty happy with the result.

Oh yeah, and I won the bet. :)