Notes
Fantastic day. I was planning to try for under 34, with a sort of stretch goal of getting close to 33, but I never expected to run 32:32. I felt amazing right at the start and just kept going for it.
The start was a bit of a pain, because we seeded ourselves and it turned out that we were probably being a little more honest than most. It was a big mob in the beginning, but after about 30-60 seconds I was able to get some space and start running. The first mile was ~6:30, and it felt easy enough that I just kept on going like that. Around mile 3, the Ottawa sprain started to dully ache, but it never got worse than that. Toward the very end, I was feeling a touch of tightness in the right calf, but that also didn't really materialize into anything during the race. I was running well enough in my capabilities that I decided to push the last mile as hard as I could manage, and I ended up with a 6:15. Not too bad for the end of a 5-miler! I probably could have gone faster than that, but I was getting nauseous and didn't want to dry heave at the end.
All in all, this was an incredible result. I never expected to run this fast. It gives me a huge amount of confidence in my training so far, and makes it feel really possible that I'll be back to running my old times sooner than I thought.