Notes
Conditions were perfect for a fast 5K this morning. I hadn't signed up in advance, so I got to the race at about 8:20 for a 9:20 start. However, it took me a while to find a place to park, and I was really hustling to get registered. There was an enormous line for registration, and when I got signed up, low on time, having walked half a mile from the car, I discovered I couldn't pay cash. Fortunately, I good Samaritan took cash from me and used his card to pay my entry fee. It's nice to remember the small nice things that people do in view of how the race turned out.
I did a 2 mile warmup, give or take, and then lined up at the front of a huge group of people, most of whom didn't look like particularly serious runners. I went out fast - 6:40 first mile - and then started to feel the hurt. At 2 miles, I was disappointed to see I'd slowed down - 7:15 - but the course doubled back and I could see that I had a lead of about 0.1 mi or a minute or so on the number two woman. I felt I was going to hold her off and pushed on. As we'd doubled back people going the other way started drifting in front of me, and the course started getting more crowded. It was at maybe 2.5 mi that I missed a turn. The course started getting crazy as I was running straight into oncoming runners. I was getting pretty mad as I felt they should be on the other side of the road, but then I realized that I perhaps made a mistake. By 2.75 miles I was sure I'd made a wrong turn but was so physically tired, I was having a hard time processing things mentally. At stopped my watch and asked directions. I then decided to run the last 0.1 just to get a time. I jogged out another 0.1 miles and then, very grumpily, walked at least a mile back to my car.
Winning a big race like that would have been a huge deal for me, so I'm pretty upset about how things turned out. However, the bottom line is that being able to run a 5K in about 22 flat gives me the opportunity to be close to the front of noncompetitive races, and if I keep up the hard work, there will be more successes in the future. Also, I think I would have been at about 22 flat without the mishap, so I haven't lost that much fitness over the last month of slacking, illness and injury.