Missed it by...that much...

Nice cool morning for a race, my fav temperature by the way.  Got there with plenty of time to spare and go through all the normal pre-race rituals.  It’s been about 4 years since I ran a standalone 5k (e.g. not part of a DU), so the rituals were a little different, including 5 minutes of strides, the last time I ran a 5K was only the 3^rd race I had been in, so it was just about making it across the line.

The goal was to PB with a time under 25 min., got to the start line with 30 seconds to spare and plenty warmed up, weaved my way through the crowd to get to a spot where I could run my pace without breaking my stride, and was feeling pretty good about the pacing and energy reserves, found it odd that after only 1.5k we were heading back to the start since the race director had stated it was a single loop course.  On the way back from a turnaround at about 2.5k I was really beginning to question what was going on as the start/finish line was in sight again, and there was a crowd of people standing there.  Turns out the lead runners ran past one of the volunteers at a key corner early in the race and missed the actual course route.

The race director apologized profusely and offered refunds, but also offered the option of running the full 5k race as they had managed to stop about 2/3 of the participants after the 1.5k loop.  So with about 1 miute of rest (after about 3k on the first attempt) the race was re-started, I decided since I was already out there, I may as well take advantage and get 2 races for the price of 1.

I had to weave through even more people to get to the spot where I could get into my own pace this time out. In hindsight, I started the second race a little too fast, and at around 3.5k, my legs were feeling really heavy and my breathing was laboured, but I just kept the runner ahead in sight, 3 other runners passed me but I could not keep pace.  Fortunately for me, I’ve been running a lot of down hills and there was a sharp but short decline just before a gradual incline to the finish, which meant I could really get the legs turning over and finish with a strong (to me) kick.

I finished in a time of 26:08, about 20 seconds slower than my PB, but I will get another chance at it in a couple of weeks at the Santa Shuffle, so I’ll just keep going with the speed work and trust that it will pay off on a course that hopefully will have no routing issues J