Josh ran 2:59. Their splits are together thru the half, then she drops off.

I found Caitlyn - 3:43 - indeed, I netnipped her. I don't know how to find Allison, as I don't know what bib she had.

We also haven't entered Saturday's race results either.

Three 3:58s sounds like mental torture. Poor guy.

Curious that mile 18.6 to mile 21.75 was by far her fastest stretch of the race. That's when most people start struggling.

Allison P.

Ok, All = Palmer, Al = Parris (it seems to me like their names should be either Allison Pallmer and Alison Paris or Alison Palmer and Allison Parris, but that's not the case). Those were the MCM splits of Palmer.

This is quite overdue, I know, and I'm afraid it will be less a race report than a race ... apology! Bulleted for succinctness.

Why I expected to be significantly faster this year than last year at the CAASA Step By Step 5k (which was perhaps my most disappointing race of 2011, as I thought I'd be far more powerful following my sub-60:00 10-mile breakthrough):

• My LPR10 time was 91 seconds faster this year than last year.
  • Particularly, my time at mile 3 (16:44) amidst the 2012 LPR10 was 13 seconds faster than my time at mile 3 (16:57) in the 2011 CAASA 5k, which itself was 16 seconds faster than my mile 3 time (17:13) in the 2011 LPR10 --- thus, based on this trend, I expected to be at least/approximately 15 seconds faster than 16:44 at mile 3 of the 2012 CAASA 5K.
• Whereas the CAASA 5k 2011 had been my first 5k race since Jingle Bell 2010, I began 2012 strongly focused on the 5k, running my fastest mile 3 time ever (16:33) at the Young Life 5k in May and then running a pair of 5ks over the summer (running 17:22 on the track amidst humid, unpleasant conditions). Thus the 5k should’ve felt far more natural to me at the Step By Step event this year than it did last year.
• Unlike last year, I made a point to integrate a couple 5k-oriented speed workouts into my LPR10 training --- specifically, a 10 X “400” Fartlek run and a 14 X “200” race week Fartlek run.
• Virtually every aspect of my running has advanced since this time last year --- or so I’d like to think.

Excuses for why I actually ended up slower this year than last year at the CAASA Step By Step 5k (and more significantly than the race results would indicate, as I had a shorter Forerunner measurement this year):

• The time between LPR10 and the CAASA 5k was crunched this year, with only 19 days between the events rather than the usual just-under-4-weeks. This meant I was only able to get in one week of solid 5k training between my post-10-miler recovery and an my pre-5k tapering.
• My typical race week routine was thrown way off by the hurricane, with my usual Tuesday sprinty Fartlek run turning into an elliptical session. And then there was the matter of staying up way too late the last two nights before the race --- including the stress of discovery at 10:30 p.m. on race eve that the long-familiar Step By Step 5k course had been radically redesigned.
• Above all, the headwind on the return trip was a majorly debilitating factor. There was certainly a harsh headwind issue last year, but that which roared in the final mile this year was a contender for the worst wind I’ve ever raced against.
  • Furthermore the blustery coldness of it all had my muscles feeling fairly frail and fragile (at one point early on I almost stumbled over my own feet).
• Failing to meet the split expectations I’d placed upon myself stunned my confidence early on and caused my motivation to rapidly diminish.
  • Because I’d hit mile 1 of the LPR10 in 5:20 flat, I thought I absolutely had to run the opening mile of this 5k faster than that --- and actually running it in 5:21 made me feel like I was already losing to my 10-miler-running self from 3 weeks before.
  • Reaching mile 2 at 11:09 made me forget that I was trailing my recent LPR10 performance and instead shockingly realize that I was just 2 seconds faster at mile 2 than I’d been at mile 2 last year --- meaning I was almost exactly repeating myself despite all those perceived improvements (that sharp U-turn shortly past the roundabout this year was a momentum mangler at the worst possible time).
  • Reaching mile 3 over 17:00 via a barely sub-6:00 final mile split just made me think “Forget this race --- just win and be done with it”. I’d long since given up on tracking quarter-mile splits, as I’d been dismayed to keep seeing my instantaneous pace slipping over 6:00/mi whilst I plodded against the wind down Calvert St.
• While an unknown, grey-clad adversary had dared to try to keep close to me for about the opening half-mile, and though Perry and Tom had given me a good scare when I beheld how close they were behind me after I made the U-turn, by the time I turned right onto Alexander St, I all but certainly knew I had the competition in the bag. No one was going to push me down the final stretch (though this isn’t to say that Perry wasn’t knocking on the door!).

I found myself in something of a daze immediately after the race. Beforehand I might’ve considered only taking 10 seconds off my 2011 time to be a potential worst case scenario --- but to actually add 5 seconds (I stopped my watch at 17:41, but then the results mercifully improved me to 17:38, just 2 seconds slower than last year) when my Forerunner reading came out to 3.10 miles rather than 3.14? It was all a bit too much to comprehend at first. It barely occurred to me that I’d handily won the race and successfully defended my 1OA title. After much reflection, however, it dawned on me that I’d essentially just relived the Leapin’ Lizards 5k experience (my time at mile 3 was 17:07 at both races … so the fact that my LL finish time was 18:17 should indicate just how significantly the total distance of a Liza-certified 5k can vary). Albeit a distinctly cooler version of the event (low 40s vs. low 90s!). Again I'd found myself basking in the confident glow of having recently achieved great success at a major goal race (Crofton Kiwanis just a couple weeks before Lizard and the LPR10 20 days before CAASA) --- and again I found my confidence crushed upon fumbling a 5k follow up. Twice now has my intended victory lap been reduced to a walk of shame, and twice has that disgrace been abetted solely by a hollow sense of overall victory (I somewhat narrowly held off Joe and Perry to win LL, just as I rather marginally kept Perry and Tom at bay to slay the CAASA 5k). Yet a peak race performance (a la Kiwanis and LPR10) wouldn’t really be a peak race performance if one didn’t subsequently fall from that glorious height of running prowess and, starting anew from down in the murky trough, have to resolutely begin ascending the next, even higher peak of potential.

The hurricane thoroughly threw off my customary race week plan. For years now, it's been take off Sunday; easy mileage on Monday; a brief, sprinty workout on Tuesday (with actual speed work amounting to no more than 1.5 miles); usually off Wednesday; Breezily Brisk on Thursday; and then a short, light run followed by strides on Friday. But because of Sandy, I had to get in a run on Sunday, missed Monday, translated my Tuesday workout to the elliptical (it was still quite cold and damp out, and avoiding coming down with a cold was a high priority for me), and then did a light run Wednesday before going Breezily Brisk Thursday and taking Friday completely off. So my routine was indeed way out of whack. I am beginning to think, though, that a Thursday BB is not such a wise tactic after all --- unless the race is going to be on Sunday, in which case I would take Friday off and then do the light run on Saturday (which is exactly what I did for the last two LPR10s). Next week I might endeavor to do a minor Fartlek Friction on Monday and then a BB on Wednesday.

DR its pointless to compare your Forerunner distances between this year and last year.  Quite simply your previous Forerunner read everything longer than Perry, Crystal, Joe, and I.   Your new Forerunner reads similar to one of the Rapps Forerunner, Joe, and my Forerunner, though Perry and Crystal do have one Forerunner (I think it maybe the 405, but I could be confusing it with another one of their watches, I think they have three) that reads shorter than everybody else (for example if we get 3.10 they will get 3.07) on that one.  I think Crystal was using that one in the spring and summer as she went from having shortly longer distances than me on group runs to shorter runs all of a sudden.