Today was my first serious race in over a month. I ran well, but the rust definitely showed. I knew there would be some competitive runners in the field but I felt confident that I had a shot at winning the race and running a PR today.
I decided to run a conservative first mile, especially since I didn't want to go out of control as it was all downhill on the way out. A pack of four jumped out ahead and I sat in the second pack until right after the mile. The first pack consisted of Mat Abernathy and Peter Novick (two old faces from the Golf Course days), a PR runner, and surprisingly, a 27 year old woman. I hit the mile in 5:08 and immediately picked it up on the bridge over River Road, where I passed Novick (this was the last time I'd see him). Steps later I caught and passed the woman, although she latched onto me and had no intention of dropping.
Hitting the sharp turnaround on the trail I could see she was right on my ass, and saw there were others close behind. I stayed in third behind Abernathy and the PR runner (who had a sizeable 15 second lead at this point) for the next half mile--but knew the woman was only one or two steps behind. I hit two miles in 10:33 (5:25 for the second mile) which I thought was pretty spot-on due to the nature of the course.
Soon after I was passed by none other than Jordan Snyder who immediately gaped me by a good ten meters. I knew with the uphill nature of the second half that I needed to be working harder. I didn't have enough to surge to catch him, but I did pick up the pace enough the stay an even distance behind him for the entire third mile. This was heavily aided by the first woman, who pulled even and attempted to pass me with about 1000-800 to go. I surged and dropped her. She pulled even again and got a step on me. Hell no. I looked up at Jordan and focused on moving up on him. The woman faded a bit and I hit three miles in 16:10 (5:36 eek).
I was hurting, but could feel that I was dragging and moving too slowly. I feel like I basically resigned myself to stay steady during the third mile rather than making a big move. Safe and possibly smart, but not the edge I had at Pike's Peek. Thats ok for my first race back, but to run faster I need to make those moves. I obviously had something left as I got my legs turning over and hit 28 seconds from the third mile mark to the finish. I passed Jordan with about 100 meters to go and rolled it in. 16:38, four seconds off my PR, and a third place finish. Not too shabby, but I think a big PR is within reach.
Got in a great seven mile cooldown with a bunch of MCRRC guys and Sam. Big shout out to Sam who got up early to meet me at 7 am for a warmup and trekked out to the mile mark to cheer me on. Great morning, lots of fun, good race. Can't complain, but ready to ramp it up a notch next time.
Results: http://www.mcrrc.org/racing/2010/20100606CapitalCrescent5km.htm
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