Notes
Yesterday I did my usual cross train (85 minutes kickboxing in the early AM) and then rested the rest of the day. I really felt good and confident this morning, grabbing a banana at home and leaving right on time to register.
About 1/2 an hour before the race, I did a nice, easy warmup run for .5 mile. I felt great and averaged an 11:59 pace.
We lined up for the race, and I set myself at the back of the block. There was a massive crunch at the beginning, and everyone took off fast. I grabbed a comfortable pace and started following a few people who were running where I felt comfortable, not looking at pacing.
I hit mile 1 and looked at the garmin, shocked to see the 10:50 pace. I was still very comfortable, so I tweaked my pace up very slightly and started switching people to pace off of. Much of this time I spent passing people who took off very fast, and I just tried to stay slightly uncomfortable and consistent in pace. Mile two beeped and my pace was 9:59. I decided to try and maintain the same pace, leaving me some room to push over the last 1/2 mile. At this point I was running pretty much on my own, passing the occasional walker, but no pack to be seen. At the last 1/2 mile, I caught up to a few people, motivating me to push to the finish. Mile 3, my pace was 9:39.
The finish line was a disaster area. The run finished on the indoor track at Villanova, and they left only two lanes for runners, the rest were used by the 5k walk. I made a rookie mistake and backed off a bit too soon so my partner could grab a photo, then pushed to the end, finishing in 31:10. I would have been under 31 had I not slowed my pace, but mistakes happen.
The whole race went perfectly in my mind, I felt great, I grabbed a comfortable pace, and even though I left it all on the course it was like prior competive musical performances when I was "in the zone".
Overall, a great run.
Chris