Notes
LDTR: Stomach/throat F'ed me up again. Beautiful night with good crowds, should have been an easy win.
The race started on cobblestones and I got out strong, perhaps following my plan of not getting out too fast but it seems I should have been even more conservative. I was in the lead with 2 others at the mile in a casual 5:24 and right as I was started to think about picking up the pace, I could feel that hitch in my breathing and I knew I was doomed. I slowed myself drastically the 2nd mile before the worst of it hit and dropped behind the leaders (oddly moving back into 2nd not much later). 5:48 2nd mile.
The leader was actually still within sight, maybe 20sec. If I had suddenly felt good, I'm sure I could have made up the gap. But I wasn't feeling better, and soon I would get passed by others and I gave up trying. 3rd mile barely under 6:30 and well over 18min, sadly a similar to my last 5k in 2019 (also the last season I had these issues).
It was weird to see Naomi and Nessa afterwards with both so happy for me. Even when I explained that my pace from my 5mi race would have won today's race, she was still positive. It was hard to wallow in my own failures with them around.
Though I often call this a stomach problem, today showed how much of a throat problem it is. After the race I had trouble talking as my throat was so sore and raspy. I think this shows more evidence of acid-reflux/heartburn (which would still make sense as a stomach issue as well). The evidence against that is I did take medicine today and previous days (antacids and pepto bismal). Though in retrospect I took less than the recommended dose, or maybe the damage was already done and the medicine couldn't play catch-up.
Part of me is ready for a break, part of me doesn't want to finish my spring peak this way.