Well, if nothing else, it was near perfect weather for a 5k in January.  My legs, on the other hand, were far from where I like them to be when I toe the line.  Even so, I managed to run a pretty good race, despite making a very basic tactical mistake.  After about 2 miles to warm up, plus some strides, I felt loose, but my quads were very sore (probably having to do with packing all the weeks miles into just 6 days.)  So, once on the line, I eyed up the competition and figured there were probably one or two guys to worry about, it's a small race so I was thinking maybe I had a shot at winning.  When the gun went off, a bunch of little kids shot right out to the front as usual.  But after about a minute, they all fade, except one kid who had a pretty good lead.  The mistake I made was underestimating him.  He looked like he couldn't have been more than 16, and in my experience, those kids always fade.  But this kid was tough, we went through the mile @ 5:30.  The second mile we slowed a bit @ 5:50.  I was safely in second place and gaining on the kid.  At about 2.5 miles I could tell I was reeling him in.  We made the last turn and I started to pull up to his shoulder.  By 3 miles we were neck-and-neck.  But surprisingly, the kid had started to kick, and my legs were just totally shot.  In the end I ran the last 1.1 @ 6:17 to finish in 17:40, probably about 3 seconds behind the kid.  Lesson learned, never underestimate your competition  With warm up and cool down, 7 for the day.

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion