Chasing The Ambulance

No, that's not a drug reference, just a play on the name of the 5K race I'll be running on Sunday, the Lakewood Ambulance Chase. I was originally going to do a 5K cross country race in Oberlin that day, but I just found out that that race is on May 9, so I decided to jump into a road race this weekend as I was mentally prepared to race. I've done the Ambulance Chase three times and each time I ran a personal best. In 2005, my first year running after a long layoff, I ran 18:32, which was the first time I raced sub 6:00 pace for 5K. The next year I ran 17:41, lowering my PR from 17:52 the previous fall. In 2008 I ran 17:18, which was a 4-second PR. Six weeks later I broke 17:00 for the first time at the Brian Diemer 5K, running 16:57.6. This year I'm thinking I can hit something in the 17:10-17:20 range for sure. I ran 17:24 a month ago and feel like I've made some strides since then. We'll see. If I'm in that range, I think I have a good shot at getting back under 17:00 again at Diemer. Rainy forecast, but as long as it's on the warm side, I'm cool with that.