Notes
Solon Beef Days 5k. Chase said he and Emily were racing this and I figured it would be the easiest way to get in miles. So I talked Helix into running it as well and we all ended up with a solid 10 miles on the day.
The race started off up a gradual hill and I stayed about 5m off the leaders. I didn't recognize anyone in the race but we were also going at a solid pace so I wasn't too worried about just sitting in the pack for a while. I thought maybe Chase would be more aggressive than he had said he would be before the race, but he wasn't around after just 400m so I figured I would just focus on my own race. The caught up to the leader by the mile mark which was a little harder than I expected. It wasn't extremely fast but I could tell I still just don't feel great so a 5:20-5:30 mile felt plenty hard. I went to the lead during the next half mile and felt like I was getting a gap pretty quickly. I tried to keep rolling and didn't want to check over my shoulder until the next turn after a long straightaway. During this straightaway I heard 11 minutes for the 2 mile, which was a little depressing. It didn't feel insanely hard or anything but it also felt a lot tougher than I feel like 11 minutes should feel. When I checked behind me on the following turn I saw that a different guy had moved into 2nd and was moving up pretty well. He was probably only 15-20m behind. I was thinking I would just be able to cruise it in but now that I knew I was in a more heated race I pushed the last mile harder. I still didn't feel great for most of it, but it did the damage needed to the other runner and extended the gap the rest of the way. I won in a decent time considering the race had plenty of gradual climbs.
Overall, I'm not sure what to think after this race. I won, which is always nice, but I don't feel any more confident after it. 16:27 still felt quite a bit harder than I think it should feel. Hopefully training can keep going well and I can get back to feeling much more fit.