bombs away, 5K edition
This morning I ran a 5K I'd been wanting to run for years, but have never managed to be around/healthy for: the "Fastest 5K in the West" put on by our local college, Fort Lewis, as a fundraiser for their cross-country teams. And by "fastest" they mean "ludicrously downhill". The first 1.5 miles of the course are pretty much flat, but the next half mile drops about 50 feet toward the access road on the edge of the mesa on which the college sits. Then it plunges off the edge, dropping 250 feet in 3/4 mile of switchbacks, after which it mostly levels out again to the finish.
There were about 60 starters, and we lined up on the college's dirt track, as the course began with a loop and a quarter before angling off toward the mesa rim road. I was briefly caught behind a slow guy but managed to slide out and inside, staking my place in about the #15 spot and the 4th woman, behind a wiry blonde I thought to be about my age (later I found she is 10 years older than me!) who looked pretty fast. I didn't look at my watch at all, just kept pace with the people around me. We looped the track and then hit the access path, which had a short, steepish uphill right around .5 miles; the blonde slowed down and I shot past her and another guy, putting me in 3rd. We hit the rim road and started stringing out along the edge, and I passed another guy, which put me directly behind the first and second women but still a ways back. I looked at my watch for the first time about .7 miles in and was shocked to see my pace was 6:35 at that point, but hey, if I could keep it up...
Passed the first mile marker with a 6:49 split. The course took a right turn and began to drop, fairly imperceptibly at first, but I often run on this road in the other direction which is most definitely uphill, so I knew we were going down! Two women passed me here, including the one who eventually won, and I was in 5th for a short time, but then I passed one of them again just as the road started to head down in earnest.
I missed the second mile marker, but my Garmin has my second split at 7:00 flat. I was not looking at my watch here as well as it took all my concentration not to trip over my own feet! There's a single really steep and sharp hairpin switchback which forced me to slow down a little, but then it was just easy curves and a solid downhill the rest of the way into town, where the road finally flattened out through the neighborhoods. I was pretty much just keeping my relative spot - the three women ahead of me were visible but not close, and nobody passed me.
I looked at my watch again at the third mile marker and it was funny, because I saw 20:25 (for a third split of 6:36, OMG!), and my brain thought, "well, a tenth of a mile takes about a minute, so I should come in around 21:25, yay, a PR!" Then I went around the corner and was shocked to see the finish clock at only 20:55! I had kind of forgotten that I'm a bit faster than 10:00 pace when I'm racing, duh.
I crossed the line at 21:03 for a 41 second PR(!!) over my February 5K - I suspect most of the difference is due to the course, as the other one was an out-and-back with an uphill second half. But maybe I'm a little faster, too. I don't care - I'm taking the PR!
Originally posted on my primary journal at http://ilanarama.dreamwidth.org/121634.html; please comment there. OpenID and anonymous comments are welcome, or ask for a Dreamwidth invite code.
There were about 60 starters, and we lined up on the college's dirt track, as the course began with a loop and a quarter before angling off toward the mesa rim road. I was briefly caught behind a slow guy but managed to slide out and inside, staking my place in about the #15 spot and the 4th woman, behind a wiry blonde I thought to be about my age (later I found she is 10 years older than me!) who looked pretty fast. I didn't look at my watch at all, just kept pace with the people around me. We looped the track and then hit the access path, which had a short, steepish uphill right around .5 miles; the blonde slowed down and I shot past her and another guy, putting me in 3rd. We hit the rim road and started stringing out along the edge, and I passed another guy, which put me directly behind the first and second women but still a ways back. I looked at my watch for the first time about .7 miles in and was shocked to see my pace was 6:35 at that point, but hey, if I could keep it up...
Passed the first mile marker with a 6:49 split. The course took a right turn and began to drop, fairly imperceptibly at first, but I often run on this road in the other direction which is most definitely uphill, so I knew we were going down! Two women passed me here, including the one who eventually won, and I was in 5th for a short time, but then I passed one of them again just as the road started to head down in earnest.
I missed the second mile marker, but my Garmin has my second split at 7:00 flat. I was not looking at my watch here as well as it took all my concentration not to trip over my own feet! There's a single really steep and sharp hairpin switchback which forced me to slow down a little, but then it was just easy curves and a solid downhill the rest of the way into town, where the road finally flattened out through the neighborhoods. I was pretty much just keeping my relative spot - the three women ahead of me were visible but not close, and nobody passed me.
I looked at my watch again at the third mile marker and it was funny, because I saw 20:25 (for a third split of 6:36, OMG!), and my brain thought, "well, a tenth of a mile takes about a minute, so I should come in around 21:25, yay, a PR!" Then I went around the corner and was shocked to see the finish clock at only 20:55! I had kind of forgotten that I'm a bit faster than 10:00 pace when I'm racing, duh.
I crossed the line at 21:03 for a 41 second PR(!!) over my February 5K - I suspect most of the difference is due to the course, as the other one was an out-and-back with an uphill second half. But maybe I'm a little faster, too. I don't care - I'm taking the PR!
Originally posted on my primary journal at http://ilanarama.dreamwidth.org/121634.html; please comment there. OpenID and anonymous comments are welcome, or ask for a Dreamwidth invite code.