Notes
After a long break since my last real race, I was really excited to get back in a 5k. My confidence going into the race wasn't really high because my workouts lately had been mediocre at best, and I had been having some hamstring pain on the left side earlier in the week.
Before the race, I meet up with Scott Wietecha and Kenny Sullivan for a nice 24 minute warm-up. It was pretty cold out, but I felt surprisingly good on the warm-up, particularly considering how I had been feeling during the last week.
The race started on time, and both Scott and I got off the line pretty fast. The first 1/3 to 1/2 mile was flat looping around a block near Bridgestone arena, but then we immediately starting heading uphill. Scott gapped me by about 20m on the uphill, but I was able to earn it back pretty quickly on the flat so that we were even at the mile. Around 1.5 miles, Scott made another move to pull away from me as we were heading up the second big hill on Division. Unfortunately I let him go, and from there on, the gap just slowly got bigger. The final 3/4 of a mile was a nice long downhill which I definitely didn't use to the best of my abilities. In retrospect, I should have tried to stick with Scott on the second uphill and then let him push the downhill where I can usually roll pretty well.
In the end, I was pretty happy with the race. The hamstring felt fine, and I felt like I was in there racing, at least for the first 1.5 - 2 miles. With a course that hilly and twisty, I'm reasonably happy with a time of 15:22. I think that is a good starting point for the season.