Notes
New Year's Race the Landing 5k. Have been loosely interested in this race in the past but honestly only really did it because I had a free entry. But I do love the course and I knew at least Jay would be there so thought it would be a fun way to kick off the new year.
Felt pretty crappy this morning and on the WU but I don't let that bother me anymore. Saw Jurdan, Jay, and a few other maybe potentially fast guys (including a guy wearing vapes as he dusted me during our WUs) but felt pretty confident it was going to be a three-way battle between the two Js and me. Sure enough, after weaving through the starting line kids, the three of us packed up and separated from the field. It was a pretty fun/exciting back-and-forth with those guys for the whole race. I think I did a good job on the first 2 miles of keeping the pressure on and being aggressive when I might have let off the gas a bit in the past. I lost a couple steps on the 3rd mile on some of the tighter turns but still kept close enough contact and worked my way back to and past Jay with about 500 left. I was really closing down on Jurdan too but once we made the last turn, he had enough left to hold me off. 16:42-16:44-16:51 final.
I think I raced very well until 2 but really should have pressed harder on 3. Maybe I couldn't have beaten Jurdan today but letting that tiny gap open up towards the end definitely hurt my chances. But on the positive side, I didn't look at my watch once and just focused on racing the other guys (though maybe that was because I knew of how the watch tends to measure on this course). We were all a little surprised/disappointed by our times, but I guess that warm, really humid weather slowed us down more than we expected. I was especially surprised that I was only a couple seconds faster than when I soloed it in a June race but, looking back at that log, I guess conditions may have have actually been more favorable that day. But hey, finished between two solid runners in solid shape so nothing to worry about... and also nothing to worry about because it wasn't meant to be anything more than a fun, competitive effort.
And yeah, there's the whole 3.04 thing... who knows. The course is certified but I do always get it short, /shrug. At least negative split by watch splits for the first time, even with the 1st mile being the easiest (to run and measure). They called out 5:25-10:48 IIRC. Not terribly bothered by it.
Had a good time seeing a lot of good folks before and after. Got a dope retro prize.