Notes
A bit disappointed about this one. I thought I was in better shape than this, but at least I wasn't over 18:00. I got a trophy for first in my age group, so yippee for that.
Went out with the lead three for the first half mile, but they started leaving me behind and I let them go. Passed the first mile in 5:19, which was a small indication that this race was going to end up poorly. I figured I could just hold on and do 5:30s for the next two, so I backed off a bit and tried to get into cruising mode. For the whole 1 to 2 stretch I was alone, and when I hit the 2 mile marker I looked to see what I'd crossed it in and realized I had stopped my watch at mile 1 instead of hitting the lap button. Huzzah.
About 400 meters into the third mile, I heard breathing and realized 5th place was right on me. He came up on my shoulder for about 10 meters, then passed. I stuck on his shoulder as he went by and let him drag me along for a while. As we rounded the corner I realized that the final half mile or so was going to be full on uphill. Who does that!? I ran next to the guy for a bit, but he seemed to be fading so I surged a little on the hill to put some distance between us. Unfortunately, at the same time the 6th place guy caught us both and gave 5th place some more incentive, and they both blew my away as we approached the top of the hill. I struggled along, but they got me by a full 10 seconds.
It's good to have a benchmark to compare against now. Definitely need to start adding some race effort work into my weekly schedule so I can get used to running in the 5:20-30 range. I think I'll start this week by hitting the track Wednesday night for some 1000s.