Reflections on a 5k

Last night I ran the first 5k race since 1995.  I can't believe it's been that long.  In the past 3 years I've gotten back into racing, but I've been focusing on things that required more guts and pain tolerance than pure athleticism.  It's a nice way to avoid the question of how far I am fitness and ability-wise from when I was running Cross Country in high school. 

Last night, however, there was no hiding behind the difficulty of the terrain, novelty of kayaking for the first time, or the grueling nature of any multi-sport event.  Last night was a flat 5k course at a perfect 60 degrees with no wind, precipitation, or oppressive humidity.  No excuses for performance other than lack of preparedness.

I started the race with a colleague from school that I stumbled upon before the start.  We both had the goal of finishing in under 24 minutes.  The start was a fast run down Market Street, which was really cool at night with the lights and over 300 other people.  It soon turned onto the dark streets of residential downtown Lewisburg and the gut check began.  I hit mile 1 at 7:58.  The fastest first mile I've run since the earlier mentioned cross country days.  I had to guess at the split at the time because of the lag in the official start and the time when I crossed the mat for the timing chip.  I couldn't see my watch well enough while moving in the dark, so I just went with it.  With about a half mile to go, I picked up the pace.  At that moment, I was so thankful for the last few weeks I'd spent doing 400 meter intervals at about a 7:20 mile pace.  The last bit of the race felt like these last few intervals and the all out one at the end.  I still had a kick, the intensity of which tells me that I could have gone faster over that last couple of miles, but the kick was there.  I had lost my partner early on, but caught back up at the end and we finished within seconds of each other.

I finished in 24:43.  I was 5 minutes out of medal contention and didn't meet my goal, but when I found out that the course was actually 3.2 miles long (not 3.125 that is more the actual 5k distance), broke down my time to see that I'd averaged about 7:43/mile.  I'm very happy with that.  I've been struggling to build speed these last few years.  It's a far cry from my all-time best of 18 minutes, and I don't think I'll see that again, but I think that I can get that pace down to 7 minutes/mile and maybe even get below 20 minutes again.