PPTC puts on the Al Goldstein Summer Speed Series every year -- seven 5Ks, one every other Wednesday.  The first one was two weeks ago.  I didn't do it; still too close to the marathon.  But this week's race happened to be on National Running Day, and I just couldn't resist the allure.

I don't run in the evening at all.  Like, ever.  Morning running works better for a variety of reasons, one of which is that I can do it on an empty stomach.  Because I don't ever run with a day's worth of food in me, I was super nervous for this race -- possibly more so than I was before my first race ever.  (I had a dream a couple of days before the race that I ran a PR [22:22, in the dream] and immediately puked.  Yay for the PR, but I'm severely emetophobic; I will never run hard enough to make myself puke.)

Of course, I didn't feel like I was in PR shape.  I never do, since I'm always freaking injured.  (In case you're wondering: yep, knee still hurts.)  I planned to change the display of my watch so I could only see distance, not my pace, based on the reasoning that it would be too depressing to see how slowly I was running!

Then I learned that Wednesday was also opening night for Celebrate Brooklyn, and Chaka Khan was going to be playing in the Bandshell.  To avoid the masses of people up there, the course was altered: instead of a loop of the park, it would be two lower loops, crossing at Wellhouse Drive.  This means no climb up Zoo Hill!  And while I'm less than thrilled to be wearing a down jacket in June, last night's weather was undeniably perfect for running.  I decided to give that PR a shot.

I was supposed to be following Ben, who was planning to run 21:30 -- which is a big stretch for me, since to PR, all I needed was 22:42.  I'm pretty sure I can run faster than I think I can; that's one good thing about hiding the pace on my watch, I can't freak out that I'm running too fast if I don't know how fast I'm running!  Still, 21:30 is pushing it.  But we'll see.

There were a bunch of kids lined up at the front.  I so love when this happens (sarcasm), because they blaze out at the speed of light and then peter out after a hundred yards or so, leaving the rest of us to weave around them.  Which is not only annoying, but it doesn't help me to keep from going out too fast.

Er, yikes.  I always forget that my watch beeps after every lap, so even though I couldn't see my pace, I could see that.  I knew I was running too fast, since after about half a mile Ben ran up beside me and said something like, "How's that 6:10 pace working out for you?"  I nicely told him to shut up because I didn't want to know my pace, but hey... it was too fast.  Crap.

Some guy stopped to tie his shoe during the second mile.  Right in the middle of the road.  Really?  This is not supposed to be a steeplechase.  But it kind of turned into one.

I can't really say that the third mile hurt any worse than the previous two, but I knew I was running a perfect positive split; I just didn't feel like I could do much about it because I pretty much wanted to die.  And then.  And then.

I saw the finish line, and the clock read 21:4x.  There was no timing mat at the start, so gun time would be my official time, and I really, really, really wanted to finish under 22:00.

I sprinted my little heart out (funny, I was just swearing that I couldn't move any faster if my life depended on it), but as I crossed the mat, the clock flipped over to 22:00.

Sad face!  So close.  Sooooo close.

But then the official results were posted.  And look!!

I can't even begin to understand how this happened, but I was ecstatic.  It's really kind of unbelievable -- it took forever for me to finally break 23:00.  I mean, I spent six months trying to do that, and it's been six months since I finally did, but I haven't run another 5K in that time span.  I have no idea where this came from, I really don't... but now that I know I can do it, I'll be less terrified of trying to winnow it down a bit more.  Hopefully not in the same positive split fashion, because if I run an even pace, I'd presumably manage to finish a little faster (and with less I-am-going-to-die agony); and now I'm slightly less wary of looking at my watch to maintain a similar pace to this.

Garmin: 3.13 miles in 22:01, 7:02/mi pace.

Official results: 3.1 miles in 21:59, 7:05/mi pace.  95/318 OA, 9/115 F, and 3/32 F30-34.  Yes, that's right; this fourth place specialist placed third.  Even more amazing because fourth place... ran 22:01.

<dl> <dt></dt> <dd>That's Al Goldstein himself behind me!</dd> </dl>

The McMillan Prediction game!  Actually, this is kind of funny, since my HM PR in Tel Aviv predicted a 22:00 5K, and I laughed in the face of that.  Shows how much I know!  These are pretty much the same, then -- just a few seconds faster.  And yep, I still laugh in the face of them.

1mi — 6:20.0
4mi — 28:34 (7:09/mi)
5mi — 36:29 (7:18/mi)
10K — 45:39 (7:21/mi)
15K — 1:10:44 (7:35/mi)
10mi — 1:16:19 (7:38/mi)
HM — 1:41:47 (7:46/mi)
FM — 3:34:12 (8:11/mi)

It was weird to run an evening race, because after I got home, I felt like it was much earlier than it really was -- I was just sitting around at 9:30 PM like it was late afternoon, since I had just gotten home, after all!  But despite that, I'm surprised to say I quite enjoyed this race.  Can't beat the PPTC camaraderie, that's for sure!  I don't think I can do any of the other June races -- I'm racing the next three weekends, which is already close to overkill -- but I probably will do another one or two of these in July/August.  And I will replicate the way I ate exactly, since everything happily stayed down like it was supposed to do.

Congratulations!  Amazing to be able to run this fast so soon after your race.  You did great.

Amazing what a second or two on the time can do for your post race assessment.

Congrats on the PR, 3rd place, sub 22:00, and not running the kiddies over.

Not sure if you will ever admit it but you are having a breakout year across the board. I cannot wait to see where everything is at the end of the month.

Congrats on the PR, you're amazing!

Congrats on the massive PR!!  That is super exciting!  I think taking a stab at a 5k coming off of racing the longer distances can really work out sometimes, even though it seems counterintuitive.  I hope your awesome streak continues over your next few weekends!

Congratulations on the PR, sub-22 and 33rd place! Awesome race

I really want to do one of these this summer.