Notes
So I decided I'm going to race myself into track shape since that's the best way to get on a track around here. I probably should have started last week at another Grand View meet, but this will work. The fastest seeds were around 16:30 for this race, and they were all from William Penn, so my plan was to run with them.
The race started off with a waddle of a lap - 85sec. Soon 2 guys shot off the front, but they weren't the William Penn guys so I ignored them (maybe a mistake to let them go as they both would beat me). Now we were still doing over 80's and I was unsure about going with the 2 ahead so I took the lead and got us under 80 for a lap. I wasn't catching the leaders at all but split up the pack quite a bit. Mile in 5:35 (really? was all I thought).
I didn't lead very long as a WP guy passed me and lead for the next 2 miles. In was a group of 4 left and we consistently hit ~78 per lap. I was a mix of wanting to drop these guys for a lap, and then wanting to slow down for a lap - ah the mental struggles of a track 5k. Basically the last mile I knew I could kick past on the last lap (my legs had energy), but I was really tired of racing (uncomfortable is all really). The leader of our pack was breaking away with 600m to go and I passed the 2 others to get to him, and with 300m to go I kicked for home with some solid speed.
I don't know any other splits, but the last 2 miles had to be around 5:10 pace, which means I'm getting somewhere. I also don't know what my last lap was in, but I did finish 13sec faster than a guy I was running with, so I think I can safely say I was in the 65-68 range. Promising results, just need to keep improving.