Pink Power 5K

First off, my 10K today got cancelled again due to the weather. It is now permanently cancelled. I am resting my legs today and working on catching up on all other house things.

Now onto yesterday's race...

The weather was ideal. The course was good. My legs felt good and they got away from me... the race was run on a People Trail that is slightly wider than a sidewalk. There were 265 people in the race so the start was a little crowded as we funneled from the parking lot onto the People Trail. My legs ended up going a lot faster than my brain wanted to in an effort to get some running room...

0.25 miles - Garmin pace 6:05 Aackk!!
0.50 miles - Garmin pace 6:35
0.75 miles - Garmin pace 7:00
1 mile - 7:16

So then I spent the next quarter to half mile still trying to slow down my pace and I overshot it. The other "problem" was that it was an out-and-back course so I could see where everyone was at the turnaround; I realized I was going to win my age group so I think I got a bit complacent.

2 mile split - 7:55 Drat!!

I spent the next mile alternating between trying to pick up the pace to break 24:00 and just finishing the race because I didn't think I could break 24:00. My legs were getting a little dead too from blowing out that first mile and I think I was tired overall from a big mileage running week.

3 mile split - 8:11
last 0.1 - 1:24.6

Official time - 24:46.6
Average pace - 7:58

Happy that I got my average pace under 8:00 again. Not happy about my lack of pace control!

One of my goals this year is to break 24:00 in the 5K. I need to run a 7:43 pace to do that. I really just need to work on pacing overall as you can see my splits are all over the place again. I'm not doing any dedicated speedwork to get my 5K time down. I guess I'm hoping it will just magically happen as I run more. Really though, I just need better self-control and pace myself!

Final race results: 38 of 265 overall
                              12 of 191 females
                              1 of 18 45-49 female age group (won by 2:03)