9 mile trail run this morning. Legs felt surpisingly loose this morning and I actually ran pretty fast coming off a PR 5K. Averaged 8:09...last 3 miles were in the 7:20's.
Reflecting back on the 5K, I once again come to the conclusion that the 5K is the pound for pound most brutal race there is. BUT there were some pretty cool moments for me from this past race.
First was the fact when you run a 5K it's just a different kind of race than the rest because they are generally smaller and it seems more so that you're racing your competition more than the clock. I get to the start line and I'm actually sizing up the other racers...see a few familiar faces. Me another guy I know, look around and we both ask, "whose going to win this thing?" He responds that it's going to be me...I hate hearing that but I wasn't sure he was wrong. I can't imagine a scenario in a longer race where this would be possible. In the end, the winner dropped into the 17's and coasted to victory. I finished a distance 3rd but still...3rd out of 300+ is better than I've ever done.
Second, after reading more about road racing, it was pretty cool to actually pull off a nice racing tactic. Around the 2 mile mark I see that I'm closing in on the 3rd place runner and I'm probably running about 6 minutes flat at this point. I know that I'm going to pass him eventually but I knew that when it was time to make my move, I didn't want him stick with me. I had to dig deep but when I got close enough, I shifted gears (not easy to do at that pace for me) and passed him like he was standing still and never flinched or looked back. Worked like a charm. Dude never changed his stride. That was great feeling.
At the end, I'm just trying to purge my mind of the word quit and finish well. I'm dying to just coast but I hear someone cheering for someone close behind me. I even start to hear footsteps around the 3 mile mark. Ah hell no...noway I'm going to run this hard to get out kicked at the end and denied my first overall top 3. I also realize that no one is catching me that's behind at this point unless I slow down. I kicked like a ******* the end. I looked at the gps data later and I actually ran a 5:59 pace the last 1.1 miles. How I didn't end up puking, I'll never know. Turned out the guy behind me was a friend of a friend and we chatted on facebook this morning. He mentioned that he couldn't believe how it looked like I was hardly working and he was struggling so bad to try to keep up. If he only knew, I thought. Was good feeling hearing that. At least I looked strong.
One last stray observation...3 seconds away from 18:59!? I was trying to think could I have done anything any different if I knew I was so close. I know I couldn't have run any faster on the second half, so maybe I could have shaved some time at the beginning...but that's easy to think in retrospect. I gave it my all yesterday considering the wind and not treating this as an important race. There's always the next race. This gonna make me work that much harder because I know how close I am.
Anyways, enough rambling. Happy Easter, Fellas.