Notes
Race 2 of 3. 5000 m on the RPI track at the Capital District Classic.
Achilles was starting to bug me going in to this race, but I figured I could deal. Seeded myself at 17:00, but had doubts I could run that in the days leading up to the race. Ultimately decided that I could go home happy as long as Gracie didn't beat me. Had some friendlies in the race with me, but the only one I thought maybe would be running anywhere near me would be Mike Nickerson. But I was pretty sure he was going to be ahead of me, too. People be fast these days.
Just wanted to stay comfortable after the gun. Split a 40 in the first 200 meters, and was running perfect 80-second laps through the first mile, so that made me pretty happy. I slowed down a little, but had a pack to work with. There was a guy named Coby from SUNYIT who was quadrupling (3k steeple, 1500, 5k, 4x4) who busted out a few motivational saying mid-race, which I appreciated. Dude had a more hardcore day than me. Our pack slowly closed on the pack ahead of us, and by that I mean they slowed down more than we did. I ran around them somewhere in the last mile and just tried to push home. Got to the finish and was very pleased with the time on the clock. Only got lapped by one guy, and he broke 15 minutes, so I'm not too worried about him.
So this was a very good race for me, based on my current fitness. Just had to take a second after the race and get ready for the next one. Oh yeah, Mike was like 100 meters ahead of me by the time there was nobody running in between us, so he dusted me in this race.
Not sure if I'm supposed to include DNFs in the field stats, but I'll leave them out because there's a possibility of rabbits, which probably shouldn't be included. Though true DNFs I totally beat RAWR.