Notes
Practice for Krispy Kreme today. There is a Dunks a little more than halfway through the traditional PHS alumni 5k so we decided we'd do a mini Krispy Kreme - 5k instead of 5 miles and 6 donuts instead of 12.
First half of the race we went out hot with Jake pushing the pace. I hand-mapped the run so the pace probably isn't exact but it sure felt like 5 flat pace to still-somewhat-out-of-shape me. I got there ~10 seconds behind Jake.
Eating went really well. First donut was the worst, it was dry with a couple of sips to help it down my gasping throat. But as I was eating the first donut I had the second one already dunked and soaking in my cup of water (big shout out to Tim Ryan for this strat!!). I got a pretty good groove going with dunking the next donut as I was eating. Got them all down in ~3:40, could have been a few seconds slower or faster (relying on other people's splits, didn't get them myself in the heat of the moment). Whatever the time was, it was enough to get a slight time advantage on Jake even after starting 10 seconds later.
That lead immediately disappeared as soon as I started the second leg. It felt like I had eaten a stomach cramp. I remained tough and slogged my way to the finish with a decent finishing push. Jake ended up running ~20 seconds faster than me for the whole time.
I am pretty damn happy with the whole result. No, I am not in tip-top racing shape yet and won't be for a little while, but I can gut out stuff like this and do pretty decent. I think as the miles ramp up the running will turn out a lot faster come February. The eating was a really good start too. 3:40 isn't quite competition-ready, I should really be at 5, 6 minutes max for the full dozen, but still pretty impressive for my first time. I envision at least a couple more donut/eating workouts before the competition but I am feeling pretty good about it.
Oh and I didn't do a cooldown. No way in hell my stomach could have handled that.