Notes
First race in quite a while. In short, I am very surprised and happy. My goal was to run 6 minute pace and I was not confident in hitting even that. But I treated it like a race and went by feel, and this was the result.
First mile felt hard but sustainable and I was very surprised by the 1 mile clock running by. Kept it up to the turnaround but after that felt like I was falling off a little. Second mile significantly slower, almost 6 minute pace. I kept running at what felt like the same effort but I wasn't necessarily dying more. I was surprised to see 5:30 through the 3rd mile and took it as a good sign. Died hard at the end but gave an honest push and all I had left.
This is a really good sign especially since I only have the base mileage which was mostly done at a pretty slow pace. Besides the strides I've been doing and the occasional 7 flat paced run this was quite fast for me. But at the same time it felt natural and comfortable. I've always been very comfortable in race and this was no exception - right back to it.
I was less pleased with how my stomach held up. I had absolutely no issues hitting good pace so obviously my day-of carb load worked, but I think I ate too much and I felt it towards the end of the race. I think the night before I ate too much including some corn which really messed up my digestion, and I think I just had too many calories between that and adding carbs in during the day before the race. I have had zero digestion issues while eating and training low carb so I think I need to be a bit more intentional when I fuel for my next race.
Moving forward the plan is to just keep slowly ramping up mileage. The only other race on my calendar is the Brain Freezer 5k in mid-July. I am still of the mindset that I want to stay away from races in general and focus on my training. I want to show that I can sustain 60-70 mile weeks for an extended period of time without injury or otherwise lingering issues. At that point I will feel more comfortable adding races into the schedule. But it is good to know that when I am ready a race here and there should be fine and yield relatively good results.