Notes
Solid 5K for me. It was a chilly day 22 F and windy and the roads were fairly clear except for the turns. I went out just to race who was near me. There are more and more speedy people running this race now as the city is growing so I wasn't going to keep up with the top 6 who were out fast. (Note: if you look at the race results, it appears that they were just made up as I was not close to anybody and yet they say someone finished 2 seconds behind me).
I ended up racing a guy for the first 1.3 miles and I didn't have any idea I ran a 5:44 mi as I didn't know my watch beeped and the mile markers were way off. We were battling until I heard a grunt and then he slowly faded. At a turn around 2.1 miles, I saw he was a ways back and I coasted a bit after that. Mile two was the hilliest mile so I'm not surprised it was slower but I did let up on mile 3 since I was running solo. I probably would have had another 10 seconds just because I had to slow down at every turn so I didn't fall.
I was really surprised when I turned into the last 0.1 miles to see the clock ticking past 18:00 so I am really pleased with this run. I guess I'm in better shape than I thought.