Gladiator 5K - Chipping away at PR (Read 482 times)

I decided at last minute to do the local (Gladiator 5K) in Manchester, which was held at the Rec Center. Since I haven’t been doing speedwork training for the Flying Monkey marathon, I though this would be a good speedwork session, plus an opportunity to bring my 22:49 PR down. There was about 30-40 people and the temperature was about 38 or so before the race and it probably hit 40 before start time. Since it was a small race, I lined up near the front with the fast group. The race started and probably 1/8 mile into the race I was still with the front runners. I looked down at my Garmin and it was flashing a message, “Have you lost your freaking MIND??!! You’re running a 6 min pace!!!” Ok so I was a little over-exuberant for the start. I backed off a little, but didn’t look at the watch again. It was a beautiful morning and the run went through the park on the greenway, which is an area I’ve run many times. After the first mile, we hit a steep hill then turned left to go up another pretty good hill. There was a girl in front of me who I knew was pretty fast so I thought I would just hang in behind her until later in the race and if I had anything left, pass her in the last mile. After the hill we made a loop and started back down. On the turn she took the outside to miss a rough spot on the sidewalk, and I took the inside and passed her. I picked a few more people off, then came to a guy & girl running ahead of me. At first I didn’t recognize the girl, but then I realized it was someone I knew. She qualified for Boston and is one of best runners in the area (she ended up first overall female). So although I hadn’t looked at my watch, I figured I must be doing ok to be that close to her. Still, I wanted to close the gap and try to pass, but I remembered my HM experience when I passed some people and they passed me back because I had to stop to throw up. I had that burning stomach feeling, so I knew I probably should just try to hold on rather than speed up at this point. As we got closer to the end, the girl pulled ahead of the guy and I was closing in on him. I could see I probably wouldn’t be able to catch her, but I planned on beating him even though I’m pretty sure he was in a younger age group. At about 150 yds from the finish I made my move and passed him, planning on not pushing it too hard, not wanting to throw up. However, he really didn’t want me to pass him, so I had to break into a full sprint to beat him. So I crossed the line in a full sprint in front of him, and I knew what was coming next, so I walked over away from the crowd and bent over, dry heaving a few times. MAN I hate that! But at least this time it was after crossing the finish. My splits: Mile 1: 7:10 Mile 2: 7:33 (a lot of this mile was uphill) Mile 3: 7:05 Last 0.1: 32 seconds (5:18 pace) Time: 22:20 - PR by 29 seconds Placed 2nd in AG.- I got hardware woo hoo! I felt like I could have ran faster the last mile if it wasn’t for the fear of throwing up. I think I need to start doing sprints or something. It was a fun race – except for the dry heaves.

RIGHT ON! Hardware to go w/a PR, how cool is that?!?!?! Congrats, Tony!