I've never done this mid-week 5K before, but if I'm here next summer, I'll definitely do it again. This is a tough, tough course with lots of hills and lots of really nice, shaded paved trails. Sort of urban (well, suburban) cross country if you will. I was pretty happy with my race, considering the difficulty of the course and that my training has only really been going well the last few weeks. I ended up 15th overall and 3rd in my age group with an 18:45 (6:02 pace). It was good to bust some rust and remember how to handle race pain again. My pacing was surprisingly good. After a flat and very downhill first mile in 5:45 (probably would have been sub 5:20 if I had been fit!), I hit back to back 6:10's on the hilly second and third miles. So really, I ran the race about as smart as I could have given the layout. Next up is one of my favorite races, the Bay Days 5 miler on July 4. I'm hoping by then I can string 5 sub 6:00 miles together. We'll see. Right now I feel like my speed is better than my strength, so I'm going to tweak my training and do the Cabral 10K/XC workouts as opposed to 5K-specific workouts. Not much different really other than 5 mile tempos instead of 20 minute tempos, and longer intervals. If I can run sub 30 on the 4th I'll sign up for the USATF masters track championships and run the 10,000 meters (25 laps on the track!) at the end of July. I know I won't be in PR shape but if I can get to the point where sub 37 is possible, I'm cool with that. I've never understood people who never race unless they're in 'perfect' shape. As long as you're not injured, go out there and have some fun.
