Notes
This went really well! I had no idea what to expect, and again my race shape surprised me. I was just hoping to break 17. Mark wanted to go at 16:30 - 16:45 pace so I said sure I'll try to hang on. That translated to about 80 second quarters.
We decided to trade off the lead every 800m. I was first out and had a little trouble finding the pace. First lap was slow, about 82. Found the right pace after that and we were doing 80, 81 for our laps. First 1600 was about 5:26 so good there. Still felt good so tried to push a little harder for the second mile. We ended up doing more 79,80 pace. Looks like 2nd 1600 was about 5:21. Still felt strong going into the 3rd mile so I tried to pick it up more. Looks like that last 1600 was about 5:09 so definitely succeeded in picking it up. And calling the race 16:35, stopped the watch late to make sure I got the full distance recorded. Although it still ended up being short via GPS lol.
This has got me excited for what is possible in the near future. I think with not too much additional training, mainly adding in workouts, I can get close to or at 16 flat. Hoping I can execute on that soon. I have had a lot of meaningless bullshit I have to take care of that has been causing me a lot of stress and taking 100% of my time. Fighting as hard as I can to eradicate it from my life so I can really, finally, focus on running.