5k

Low mileage this last week, cause of the Rarotonga trip - a taper I guess? The race went well, couldn't sleep real well the night before. Got up in the morning, ate, Kate showed up when she was supposed to, everything worked out pretty well. Realized that I have no warm ups, ended up with just normal clothes over the running stuff. We got to the race way early - there was hardly anyone there and the course wasn't even marked yet. People did show up, I went for a nice warm up jog around the course, it was really confusing, not well marked and really random trails and streets. I got it figured out by the time it started though. Saw some guys who looked like pretty hot shit warming up, got a little nervous. They all went off with the 10k though, the 5k started 10 minutes later and it was me and a bunch of old guys. There was one who could have been a real problem if the race had been 4.9k shorter, but it seems we went out too fast and he dropped off at the 50m mark. From that point on it was just me - turned into a tempo run. And then I caught up with the slow 10kers, and from about a k until the finish I was weaving around people. It was incredibly annoying. There were some narrow bridges that I actually had to stop and walk since I couldn't get around some fat lady with a stroller. It was intolerable. Ended with an ok time: 17:55. Leaned at the tape and beat out second place by a minute or so (18:40). Kinda disapointed, all the competition was in the 10k and I was in the 5. I thought that the first race I win would have been something a little more exciting than a glorified tempo run. It was Race 2 on the Results. Kate did well, she ended up getting turned around and running a 7k, and she still got 4th in her division - pacewise she almost would have won if she hadn't gotten turned around. There is another 10k coming up in 9 weeks so I'll have to do a little better in that one, it looks like there should be some good competition there too, and Alex might run with me.