Notes
Despite what the length of this log suggests, this was just a chill time.
Decided to run this since it's a 5min walk from my apartment now and I can't have someone else winning in my backyard! I should be around for all 4 races, so think it would be cool to win all 4 and win the series. They're never all that competitive so figured even in my terrible form I could take it home right now (after all, I won one in 17:56 last year... dreadfully hot but still). Had to work a little harder than expected though! Certainly not the heat of the one I ran last year but it was still hot... thankfully a lot of shade on the course. Fun event and won a potted sunflower!
With the heat I didn't want to start in front or go too hard too fast, but there were too many fit looking guys to dawdle too much. One guy took off and while he didn't seem like your typical first 0.5mi hero, it still looked like he'd be coming back. Hung with the guy in 2nd until another came up on us, went with him. We closed the gap and passed the first guy just before mi 1 (lucky for him because I stopped him from making a wrong turn), and going into the 1.5mi turnaround the new guy had a little edge on me. Dude looked SMOOTH, thought I was toast, but by 2mi had closed up those few steps and got beside him. He still looked really smooth though so I thought he was just trying to goad me into leading for a bit... reluctantly took over around 2.4 holding back expecting to get run down later but he wasn't coming with me. I certainly wasn't flat out by the end and had more left but the heat was definitely wearing me down too, only put 18s on him. Had a good chat with him afterwards and got his number for some runs, chill guy fo sho.
According to the mile markers, 5:25(doubtful)-5:38-5:40-39, GPS thinks a little different as shown but probably got a little mixed up in the trails... they're probably each a wee bit off but whatever, not like it matters either way. Happy enough, though... just barely faster than Mom's Run with way hotter temps and a winding course with some grass and sand portions, so it's a step in the right direction, especially for an "on a whim" race.