For some reason, I always feel obligated to run races I have run in previous years and this one I really enjoyed last year so it was a no-brainer. In addition, it was my last race in the 20-29 year old age bracket, which sucks because the 30-39 bracket is much more competitive for some reason. I think all the college runners decide to start running after they get out of shape when they leave college but thats just a guess.
I decided this year to run the double which not many people do but its a good way to get mileage in and since I am already there I figured why not. I couldn't decide which race I would run as my primary but I felt like I had unfinished business in the 5K since I definitely could have run faster than I did in the BAA 5K. I decided to target the 5K as my primary race to get a new PR. The race went out pretty fast as expected since there are usually decent runners at the event and I threw down a 5:41 first mile which scared the living crap out of me. I was in new territory with paces that fast so I slowed down which in retrospect I don't think I necessarily needed to. My splits were 5:41, 5:59, 5:53 for a final of 18:21, a shiny new PR just two weeks after my last and 10th place overall in a pretty competitive race. I guess the training was working as I dropped my 5K by well over a minute in about 6 months on just base mileage. Even now I really think I could have run even faster because I backed way far off when I saw that 5:41 and my legs were definitely banged up and fatigued as I was coming off an 80+ mile week.
The 10K was going to be just a tempo run for me so I started out around 6:50 a mile and was feeling good so I just ended up running a progression run with my last mile coming in around 6:20 which isn't half bad. What is crazy is a I ran a huge PR just as a tempo run of 41:23 which I was very happy with.
It also turned out that I ended up winning my age group in the 5K and got an Amazon.com gift card in the mail a week later. This was a pretty cool feeling since up until now I only ever really won trophy's which are nice but its always good to win some money even if it didn't cover the cost of the race entry itself.
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