Cavalier 5K report (Read 403 times)

My goal going into the race was simply to break 26:00. If I got a placement in my age group (which would be a first), that would be icing on the cake. I had mapped out the course and the elevation and knew that the first mile was mostly uphill, the second mile was almost all downhill, and the third mile was both. The finish would be at the school with a three quarter lap around the track. My goals going in were to have the following splits: 8:30 8:10 8:20 That would put me at 25:00 with the final .1 sprint taking somewhere around 50 seconds and would give me a finish time of 25:50. I was a little worried about going out too fast because, well, it's a race, and because I don't really have anything to check my splits and real time pace. I wear a Nike+ sportsband, but I've found the pace information to vary wildly. So, I wore a regular old ironman watch on the other wrist and used the stopwatch to try and keep up with my splits. Of course, I forgot to hit the lap button on that and have to just guess about my times. When the gun went off, I was positioned near the front of the pack. I resisted the urge to try and stay with the people at the front, but I knew that I didn't need to be in the back of the pack. A slight downhill and then we're on a long, gradual climb for the rest of the mile. Miles were not marked on the course (a big no-no if you ask me) but I had studied the course and knew about where the first and second miles were. I remember thinking that the first mile didn't take as long as I thought it wold, and when I looked at my stopwatch, I realized I'd run it in under 8 minutes, probably somewhere around 7:45. WHAT?? I didn't feel like I'd pushed too hard, but I was already 45 seconds ahead of my plan. Yippee! Now, my strategy called for me to pick up the pace going downhill for the second mile, but I was feeling the effects of that fast uphill mile, so I went with the "I've got some time to throw away so I'll coast downhill and recover a bit" strategy. I would kick myself later for that. I ran that second mile probably somewhere around 8:45. Still somewhere around 16:30 through 2 miles with the up and down last mile ahead. Dang, where did those hills in third mile come from? I hadn't expected that, and there were 2 very steep, very long ones. On the first one I passed a young girl who had been ahead of me the whole time. She was struggling and I told her, "You can do it. Finish strong!" I couldn't have been more than 10 steps passed her when I realized that I wanted to walk a few seconds but couldn't because she would have laughed since I had just told her she could do it. Crap! Trapped by my own words. Up one more hill before the last turn onto the road where the school and finish line are. By this time my mind is really calculating. I'm pretty sure I've got my sub-26:00 goal in hand, and now I'm thinking about how cool it would be to finish under 25:00. As I turn onto the track, I glance at the official clock to see where I am (I had started my stopwatch about 10 seconds after the start, so I wasn't sure exactly where I was), and can't see any numbers because I still had to run around the track to get to the other side where the numbers were. I am striding now and still have half a lap to go when I decide that I'm most likely going to puke when I'm done, but that at least I'll be done. When I rounded the last turn, I see the clock for the first time and it read 25:05. In rapid fire, three thoughts crossed my mind as I ran down the homestretch: 1) I'm breaking 26:00 easy and setting a new PR. 2) If I hadn't coasted down that second mile, I could have broken 25:00. 3) If I really bust it, I can get 25:30. I really busted it and crossed the line at 25:29. 20th overall and 1st in my age group (of course, there were only 2 of us, but I kicked his butt by almost 6 minutes). Oh, and I didn't puke.

Great report! Nice racing too!