Steve - 7

Today I was participating in a 5K and 1 mile Grand Prix. There was a 5K at 9 am and then a road mile at 10 am. A friend of mine, Danny, was trying to break 20 for the first time, so my plan was to take it out in a tempo effort and help pull him along for a PR. I crossed the first mile in 6:09 and he was a step or so behind me. I apologized for running it too fast, but it has been awhile since I have ran a race around this pace. I still felt really good at this point. Around the one mile point, I usually make a note to myself that I should be passing other runners in the next few minutes, because most people run over their heads in the first mile and then slow down. So I tried to stay relaxed and keep the pace, passing a few people here and there. I could feel my friend slipping a little bit, but I just kept running evenly as possible. When we took the final turn, he was about 3-4 seconds ahead of me. Another friend of mine who was shooting for sub-19 was about 25 seconds ahead of me the turn with a mile to go. With a mile to go I was still feeling good. I focused again on staying relaxed and keeping a nice, long, smooth stride. As we approached the finish, I passed several other runners (some girl said "Good Job!") who were dying. I started to kick slightly and thought about gunning for a sub-19, but thought better of it. I crossed the line in 19:20, only a few ticks off my PR.

So I was really happy with the time, considering I hadn't put in an all-out effort. The course was configured such that we ran a mile, turned around, ran back exactly the way we came, and then another turn, running the same portion as the first mile again. So Mile 1 and Mile 3 were the same, but each had a net downhill of 200 feet, and thus Mile 2 had net uphill of 200 feet. I'm sure running on the downhill more helped me run such a fast time.

Ok so now for the mile we had to jog a mile back back to the start line. I grabbed a banana and orange and then headed back. I was still feeling pretty good. My goal going in was a 5:30. I wanted to take it out easy and then gradually build it up. After about a 1 minute or so, I began to pick it up. I started surging and pasted some other runners. I tried to not look at my watch and just run. With about 1/3 of a mile left, I noticed I was closing in on a few runners about 5-10 seconds ahead of me. I put in another gear and caught them and crossed the line in 5:32! Pretty close to my goal, and not bad for having just finished a 5k 40 minutes earlier!

The winner ran 14:18 for the 5k and (a different guy) 4:14 for the mile. So yeh, downhill probably helped.