Notes
Very cold morning for the end of March, but it had been cold for the previous 3 days. I arrived at the race 75 minutes before the start to pick up my packet, but it was not a very large race so there was no delay in obtaining my packet. I wore my jacket, 180's, long sleeve compression, tech t-shirt, running shorts, and C9 running pants for my warm-up. Since I was dropped off, I kept moving by walking around the start and finish area and then I started my warm up approximately 55 minutes before the start of the race. In the future, I would leave less time if racing under similar conditions since it was very cold outside.
The warm-up began with a very easy jog about about 9:30-9:45 pace for the first 8 minutes running the course in reverse direction. I noticed that the final portion was very winding with small patches of ice at 2 spots. As I got about 1.2 miles out, I reversed direction and slowly picked up the pace. On the return I ran several short strides at about or just under 5k pace. I ended up back at the start 20-25 minutes before the race was to begin. I did some very light stretches and walked around a bit to stay warm. Between 5-10 minutes before the start I did another 3 or 4 strides of only about 50m (not including accel/decce). During this time I removed my jacket and 180's and got my bib pinned. I then walked over to the start and lined up just behind the first row of starters. The instructions took a while to read off and I tried to stay loose and jump around a bit to keep the blood flowing.
I did not have any GPS capability so I relied on my watch and mile markers for splits. The start went smoothly as I only had to pass 1 or 2 people and no one passed me. After a few hundred meters the lead pack separated and there were 2 or 3 runners in front of me. I noticed some mile markers along the trail and it appeared as though I ran the first .5 miles at just over a 6 min/mi pace. I knew I would need to settle into a better pace, but I just kept following 2 runners in front of me. I reached the first mile marker at 6:22 and I was still feeling pretty good. I later realized the first half of the run had a decent tail wind of about 10 mph. I doubted this pace was sustainable, but I just continued to run by feel and follow the runner in front of me.
Mile 1-2 included several sharp turns and steep underpass crossings that threw off my pace a bit. At this time I was starting to feel the pain, but closing in on the runner in front of me. Additionally, there was another runner pretty close behind me based on breathing, but I never saw how close. The head wind also picked up making the split a bit tougher as well. This stretch ended up with a 6:42 split which was still ahead of goal time and felt somewhat sustainable.
Mile 2-3 was pretty tough but I continued to stay close to one runner in front of me and one runner behind me. There was one steep underpass that had ice so I had to slow down to ensure proper footing. About half way through the split, I was able to pass the runner in front of me as he started to slow. From this point on, I was very tired but I knew I just had to hold on for the end. The final stretch was on a narrow path and included 2 sharp turns. I'm also not sure the final mile markers were correct but I ended up finishing the split at 6:41. I also started my final kick a bit early as I was completely gassed before the finish. I'm skeptical though that I was at 50 sec for the final .1. Either way, the final time was 20:37 which was well better than I was planning especially with 22F temperatures for the race.
Overall, the effort for the race was spot on. I started a bit fast and wish I could have closed faster, but I finished knowing I left most of what I had on the race. After I finished, I made to sure to walk around for a few minutes and pick up some snacks for later. I drove home and then walked a bit more before slowly jogging ~ .75 mile cool down. I'll monitor how I feel the the next few days and take them mostly easy. I'll also update the results once I have the official times.
Moving forward, I now have a nice race effort to base training paces on. This was my first ever 5k and I didn't do any structured speed work to prepare. I did log a nice amount of miles which definitely helped with endurance. I also backed off a fair amount this week so my legs were relatively rested.