Notes
Shamrock Shuffle 8k
26:23, 5:19 pace, 16:30 5k split
5:15, 10:38 for 2 and 3, 5:20, 5:08 last .97
Got up shortly after 5am for the 8:30am race after a pretty poor night of sleep. Ate my usual pre-race breakfast and coffee and walked to the start about 7:15. Jogged 2 mile WU and did some strides, everything felt good and was smooth pre race
MacCoy and I were both hoping to sneak under 26 minutes, so we planned to go out at 5:15 for the first mile and then hopefully keep it there and get a little faster as the race went. Gun went off and that first mile happened just about perfectly as I had 5:15 exactly on my watch. Shortly after the mile I made a little move around a pack MacCoy was in, he pulled up next to me a few seconds later and from there he dropped me and ran away from me. I tried to match his pace but I could tell I was riding that line and I didn't want to push over it
I didn't feel like I slowed down but I figured I probably had. I missed the 2 mile split, but saw the 3 mile and split my watch there for a 10:38 2 mile split. So I had slowed down a little bit but not too bad. At that point knew sub 26 was off the table and changed the target to breaking 26:30. Just tried to keep the pace strong and managed to do that just fine. Definitely was hurting pretty good but managed to find a kick in the last 100m and pass quite a few guys right at the end
Decent race for me I think. Going in I was thinking anything under 26:00 would be a really good result, so this is just an average result. It wasn't a bad day at all, I am just in not great shape right now. The first mile was probably just a little over my head, and right about 5:20 felt like the correct pace the rest of the way. The pace didn't feel too fast on my legs, but I'm just not fit or strong enough right now to really push the envelope and ride that line that you need to ride in races. Not discouraged at all about this, I have improved a ton in the last 6 weeks and I know if I can stay healthy then I should be able to get fit enough by then to have a really good fall of racing