I did my first ever 5k last night and managed a 18:20 (first 2.24km 5:50 mile pace, second 2.74km 5:57 mile pace). So I cracked the 18:36 target first time, which was good! I was fairly satisfied with this as I haven't done any shorter races for 10 months or so. Conditions were good, with light winds and temps of about 70 degrees. The course is nice and flat too. A couple of things worked against me in that the organisers neglected to put out the km markers which made pacing difficult (I'm not a garmin wearer) and the small field (60 or so) meant I was running on my own from about 2 minutes in, to the end. I spotted the guy 70 yards or so in front was flagging with about 3/4 of a km to go so this helped me push on to the finish (I came up about 5-10 yards short of him), but I wasn't tough enough mentally in the 3rd & 4th km's to keep the pace of the first 2. Next time I'm going to try and kick on between 3 & 4 km as this was were I leaked time last night.

Hey Viich, Thanks for the comments, you're may be right in that I started out a little on the quick side. I also noticed the guy just in front of me was about 30 sec slower than in the previous months 5k which I'd probably say was due to warmer conditions. I'm always fairly self critical to be honest, but I was happy with my 5k debut overall! I'm going to do the next one on the 4th of August so I'll try to hold back a little out the blocks next time. You got any more 5k's lined up? I see you peaked nicely in May for your target race.