Notes
Kind of a relief to get through this one feeling pretty darn relaxed and smooth. I warmed up about 10-11 miles beforehand. Took a beetroot pill about an hour before the race, coffee 30 minutes before, and chews 5 minutes before. I woke up and ate just a bit at 5:30am so I really hungry by the start of the race. My stomach seemed to handle the nutrition otherwise just fine.
The race was sort of weird. I was nervous coming off Thursday's failed workout and decided I'd just sort of half tempo/half race to keep my legs from getting too thrashed, particularly since next weekend is a bigger test of my fitness. I started conservatively (5:01) and just felt so smooth and relaxed. I was probably about 16 minutes at the 5k and just felt like I was jogging, I moved up the first half of the race and then settled into 9th place, which seemed weird to be so high up without much effort. I got passed, but not because I slowed down. While I was definitely tired by the end, I didn't feel like I had raced. It didn't even really feel like tempo pace. My time was pretty slow, but the course was muddy and slippery in parts and I had no traction out there. I'm hoping that this is a good sign of my fitness.