Nature's Bin 5K: Nice step in the right direction

This was probably my best race of the year. Yesterday I ran 17:49 at the Nature's Bin 5K with a huge negative split. Conditions were pretty ideal -- mid 40s though a little windy going out but that made the tailwind nicer on the last 1.5 miles, which is a straight shot down Lake Avenue. My early pace felt pretty controlled and I thought it felt faster than 5:54 at the mile, but I trusted how I felt and didn't panic to try to make up for lost time. The second mile I just tried to stay in the groove but not overextend myself. There were a few guys that were coming back to me and this made it easy to lock into my pace. When I hit the turn off Edgewater onto Lake I got a sudden extra gear and just started running as hard as I could. Right after the turn I hit the 2 mile in 11:47 (5:53) and I figured if I knew that if I just held pace I'd break 18:00. I ended up doing much better and hit the 3 mile mark in 17:16 (5:29) and then kicked it in as hard as I could. I came from way back to catch a guy on the final straight but he managed to outkick me. In any case, I'll definitely take it. I haven't had a really good negative split race in a long time. I think my focus on short intervals with short recovery, like the 16 x 400 with 100 recoveries workout I did earlier this week, are really helping me. I also think that the combo long run/tempo workouts are helping too as well as giving myself 2-3 days between stress workouts. Next up is a 2 mile road race in New Orleans on Friday, which will be a nice speed workout. It's going to be weird running in 80 degree temps again though the race is an evening race so it might be a little cooler.