The race I ran today was the Mark the Great 5k that Susan here on the blog was putting on in memory of her brother Mark, who passed away recently. It was a nice event that had a real close knit feel to it, as most of the people there were at the race to support Mark's family. About 400 people finished the race, which is quite a few for a first year race. The race course is pancake flat, making a loop through some country roads in Benjamin, Utah, and finishing at basically the same place as it started. My goal for this week had been to hit my first ever 90 mile week. As such I had run 16 miles on Friday, 6 of the miles coming after 8:00pm. This is not what you would usually would want to do the day before a race, but I am thinking more of the big picture here. I also decided that in order to make this more resemble a marathon training workout that I needed to get in a long warm-up, so I ran 10 miles before the start of the race. A few miles into the warm-up I was feeling great, and I was ready to start the race. However, by the time I had run the entire warm-up and had already hit 80 miles for the week I was feeling tired, and I didn't really know what to expect for the race. Since I wasn't sure what to expect I decided to go out hard and try to hit splits just under 5:00 for the beginning of the race, and then try to maintain the pace as best I could.
So, the race starts, and I fall in behind a couple of guys that I coached at Springville high last year for cross country. After a little over a quarter mile I decided that I needed to speed up, so I came around the outside and took off. A high school kid from Maple Mountain tried to follow me, and he held on until just before the mile mark. 4:57 for the first mile. Right where I wanted to be. The second mile was more of the same, except I was completely alone and I was starting to hurt and feel uncomfortable. 4:58 for the second mile, 9:55 for 2 miles. At this point I was still right on pace, but being so far out in front I started to loose concentration a little bit, and the next thing I know the pace is no longer hard. I realized my mistake and picked up the pace again, but it resulted in a slower third mile, 5:02 (14:57 for 3 miles). I then sped up a little more to a pace that somewhat resembled a kick and finished in 15:26. So, considering the conditions, having run a 10 mile warm-up, having run 16 miles the day before, and running this race at the end of my first ever 90 mile week, I am rather pleased with the time. It is officially the fastest I have ever run a non-aided 5k (although the 15:30 I ran at the minuteman 5k last year is probably a better quality based on terrain) and I was doing everything I could to make sure that I was not 100% at race time. If I would have been keying in on this race, and if I would have tapered, and ran with a faster field I think that I could have come close to breaking 15:00 on this course, which is exciting because even though the course is flat it is still at altitude.
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