Notes
By far my fastest race yet, though I think I pushed harder in the last mile of the Komen 5k. Today I was faster because I've been doing speedwork. Maybe I'm slightly fitter, but mainly I'm more used to running faster. The first mile today was smooth and easy. By the end of mile 2 I was starting to struggle and expected not to be able to hold on during mile 3, but I was still on pace to run under 19:00. I was trying to average 6:04 on my watch, and it was soon clear during mile 3 that I wasn't going to be able to do it. So in the doldrums I allowed myself to slow down perhaps a bit more than necessary, thinking that I might finish around 19:10. If I had dug deep at that point as at Komen, I might have gone up to 10 seconds faster today. I didn't realize I was still in range of breaking 19 minutes until I actually saw the finish line clock at about 18:40, so I kicked as hard as I could from that point. The course was totally flat. There was one sharp turn around but otherwise nothing to slow one down.