Notes
Very rainy race today at the Samaritans 5k. I debated whether to run it, but I had preregistered so I figured I might as well go. I haven't felt very confident in my 5k performances lately, and I wasn't sure what I would be able to do. I decided to go hard despite the rain and see what I had.
Initially I made the mistake of trying to dodge puddles before eventually giving up and just running through them. Also, the mile markers, and especially the 1st mile marker, were way off, so I didn't have access to mile splits during the race. The splits below were calculated from the Garmin data after I got home.
The first mile felt pretty good, and the second mile felt OK. The third mile also felt OK until about the last half-mile, when I started to get the familiar lightheadedness that goes with a hard 5k. I had a lot of trouble motivating myself to push through despite being on pace for a sub-21. Felt like I didn't have much of a kick, but the data says otherwise. Finished in an official 21:02.
I'm a little disappointed in the time but proud that I raced despite the rain. I actually placed pretty well, 12th out of 443, so I'm happy with that.
Splits:
Mile 1: 6:41
Mile 2: 6:47
Mile 3: 6:54
Mile 3.1: 0:40
Monday update: I wonder if my strong performance in June and lesser performances since are due to overtraining/lack of tapering. In June I had just had two forced weeks of low mileage because I had been out of town. Since then I've been running 40 mpw, every week. Maybe I could go sub-20 this fall with a week or so of taper?