Notes
felt like crap when I got up. Bladder almost fucking exploded in London on the ride over (I have never had to pee that bad before in my life) felt pretty weak and slow on our warm up. Once I did some strides and my drills I felt a lot better. By the time I took my warm ups off to race I felt fantastic. It was just warm enough that I wore my singlet, a pair of half tights and gloves, no arm sleeves or headbands/hats this week. I wish I had my Brooks pure-project shoes here in the UK but I made do with my trainers just fine for this road race.
This race is a little goofy but bear with me. Team of six and everyone runs one loop around hyde park in London. Each loop is (according to my mate who wore his gps watch for the race) 5.32 kilometers. Tactically I ran it like a 5k because I didn't know the distance until afterwards having only heard "it is a bit over 5k" I ran 5th and as such was privy to the best that no-mans land had to offer. I passed A TON of people throughout the race, but I was lapping them, not passing them. I only saw one other guy that was on the same lap as me the entire time. Somewhere near halfway I spotted him about 200 meters or more in front of me. The rest of the race I just kept trying to close that gap on him. That succeeded pretty well. I think I used everything I had catching him and by the time I did he noticed me and kicked like a beast with 150 to go and got a little of his gap on me. My final teammate was not great so they beat us soundly so I don't feel to bad about the whole thing.
I am well chuffed with this time though. It was an easy road course but just going off of average mile pace I ran about 16 20 for 5k on route to my total distance. We had a tough week of training and I am definitely happy to be where I am right now. I think the range that running ahead gives for the 5k having the same average mile pace was 16:19-16:21.