I can finally see and feel all the effort I have been putting in week after week doing speed work. It showed up today in my 5k race I was participating in. I ran a 22:41! My goal was to get under 23 minutes and I finally did it. That averaged out to a 7:19 minute per mile. My goal this year is to get down to a 7 minute mile when I run anything under a 10k on the road and I think I am well on my way of obtaining that goal this year!
When the race started I wanted to keep this one girl in my age group in my sites, we call her the gazelle. I did for the first mile and a half after that I focused on those directly in front of me and the girl who was racing next to me. The Gazelle took off pretty fast and I did not want to blow the race by running fast from the start. I am all about negative splits! My first mile was a 7:30 and my second mile was too! So after that 2nd mile mark the girl who was next to me that kept speeding up and slowing down, I finally sped up and passed her. From then on I worked that last hill and let the downhill take me into the last 1/2 mile of the race. I really opened up after the 2 mile mark and when I was coming up to the corner where the finish line would be in sight I started to really pick it up and passed this guy and I don't think he liked that because he was on a dead sprint after that to the finish line. He was about 6 foot tall and all legs but what he did not know was that I was a sprinter in high school and in college and I was not about to back down. I was neck and neck with him going to the line and a little boy was in front of me and I had to veer a little to the left to get around him and when I did long legs beat me to the finish and even the boy crossed before me! It was a great race and the girl who I finally passed came up to me after the race and congratulated me on a great race. That's what is all about good, fun, competition!
I do want to tell a little about the race in general. I did this race a few years ago and swore to never do it again because they did not start on time, the runners, walkers and boys and girls quest runners all started at the same time and it took f o r e v e r for the awards. Unfortunately the area race directors decided to make this race part of the local running circuit so that is why I did it. So today they had the walkers go first and 15 minutes later the runners went and then in another 15 minutes the boys and girls quest runners went. The race started about 10-15 minutes late, there was chip timing this time so that was nice and the results were posted quickly. Age group awards were presented in a timely fashion and I was awarded a pair of giant running socks that are guaranteed to shrink. So this experience was better but I still feel the race director could do better, maybe he should not run in it and concentrate on making sure everything is running smoothly. Two weeks until the next 5k in the area circuit we will see how I do in that one! On to more speedwork.
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