I ran my first 5K in long time today. Last year I ran 2 5Ks and those did not go so well so my nerves were pretty much in full alert before the race. Lucky to have a friend to chat about other stuff in our warm-up but I was pretty nervous. I had hoped to go under 21 minutes and all my workouts indicate I can run significantly faster but my mind is not yet on board with that so baby steps with a sub 21 minute goal.
The course is suppose to be one of Charlotte's Flattest courses. Well here is the thing with Charlotte, it is hard to find a mile that is flat let alone a 3 mile stretch of roads that are flat. This course is flatter and more of rolling hills but not flat which sort of took me off guard but anyway I went with it and but alas legs were feeling the hill repeats from earlier in the week. Another thing is I kept finding myself trying to settle in marathon style like find a hard pace and settle in. You just can not to do that in a 5K. You have to push the entire way and try to fry the legs a bit in the process. I was not that successful in doing that as I was loosing focus and would find my body in the wrong rhythm of running. I think I just need some practice at racing this distance but I am really pleased at the results as it was a 1 minute PR and good enough for 2nd place overall Masters award. I am really grooving on these Masters Awards. I guess there are benefits to turning the big 4-0!!!!
Overall time was 21:15 - splits 7:18, 7:02, 6:45 and 5;50 (last .10)
I walk away proud and with my head high. I did not taper for race and ran a tough hill repeat workout on Tuesday and hard 14 miler on Wednesday so to pull a small PR in a big training week is a win for me.
The goal in training is progress not perfection. I have not seen any type of PR in 2 years so I will take this victory and carry it with me to my next race/
~ Keep Moving Forward
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