Notes
UConn 5k
Lots of preparation went into this race. Woke up around 8 o clock to shake out and then eat some dumplings. Unusual choice for a breakfast, but it's filling and easy to digest. Not the first time I've done it, so my stomach won't be feeling anything weird. The meet seemed to be a rolling schedule with the 5k near the end of the event. I heavily underestimated how long the meet would take and I ended up waiting 8 hours for my race rather than the 5 I was hoping for. I would have eaten much later had I known better. I'll be smarter next time though and try to judge the schedule more effectively.
For the race itself, I was in a super fast heat without knowing what I was capable of. Everyone was at least 15:20 or faster except for one guy around the same seed time as me. I decided I'd stick with him for the race. There was one guy who was seeded 14:10, but I guess he wasn't there. Race starts off and I'm almost dead last. However, I'm right behind the guy who I assumed to be the same speed as me. It didn't take more than the first lap for me to fall off the main group. However, the first lap was still a 71 and the 800 a 2:26. I tried to stick to my own guts and stay behind the runner in front of me until I realized he was slowing down and I had to pass him if I didn't want to fall behind myself. First mile was at 4:56. This is when things started going downhill because I was left to run on my own and the next person ahead of me was 100m ahead. Without anyone to really run with, I started to slow down drastically. Getting lapped didn't help with the mentality either. I tried to stay tough the whole time and there were plenty of moments I wanted to quit too. I knew I wasn't going to even break 16, but I wanted to at least run the whole race. If I placed dead last, I'd be ok with that because I did the best I could. Finished around 16:18.
Positives: Finished the race despite losing a lot of steam after the first mile. Worked well with the people around me, even though there were very few to begin with. I stayed tough even though I was falling off pretty hard.
Negatives: Slowed down a lot after the first mile and was never really able to recover. Didn't quite meet my seed time.
Overall: Honestly, after the race, I was pretty frustrated and upset. I didn't even cooldown afterwards. However, after waiting a day to think about the race and everything that happened, I realized that I put in a solid effort given the unfortunate circumstances. Having to run alone the whole race sucked, but I still ran tough in spite of it. I may not have raced the time I wanted, but the effort was still there. I'm actually pretty happy I raced because this presented a different aspect of racing I definitely could use more practice on. If I can handle a race where I have to run alone for most of it, then I'll definitely run much better when I'm actually placed in a more appropriate heat. Looking forward to the next race.