TOU 5K
Goal for the day was to break my PR (17:08) set last year at the Draper Days 5K. That course is a point to point with an aided first mile. Today's course was a loop, mostly flat, but slower than Draper Days. A PR today would be worth more (15-20 seconds ?).
I got there early and got in 4 miles of warmup, some with Paul. The race looked pretty small (~200 runners?), with Paul being the obvious favorite. One other runner looked serious and I was introduced to him in the first 200m by Paul. His name is Joe Furse and he is on the blog as well. He recently moved to Logan and is attending USU. He will be a good addition to our Logan group. The first 1/2 mile I more or less ran with Paul and Joe with them putting 12 seconds on me or so on the second 800. We quickly gapped the rest of the field.
I hit mile 1 in 5:21 (176 ave HR). I tried to keep the pace going but mile 2 had a short but steep hill that took some juice out the legs. I was slowly catching back up to Joe and we pulled even by the mile marker.
5:35 for mile 2 (185 ave). I kept the intensity up the best I could and was able to drop Joe on another small hill at 2.25. From then on, it was my goal to do the best I can to get close to 17 min.
Mile 3 was 5:32 (188 ave). Too slow to break 17, but I will have to kick hard to get close. :39 for the final bit (190 ave). No juice in the legs as I was only able to get to 5 min pace on the kick. (Mile splits are based on Garmin miles)
17:07 by my watch. 17:08 officially.
3.13 miles. 5:28 average
Overall, a successful race even though I officially tied my PR. After a LONG wait and some miles cooling down while waiting, we got our awards. They were very impressive for a 5K. It is hard to describe so I wont try, but it was cool.
Paul, Jon, Joe and myself then ran the TOU course backwards to meet up with Andy. While doing so, we saw the leaders and enjoyed watching the race unfold. We caught up with Andy as he had just passed mile 20. He got blown away by the wind, rained on, all while the sun was shining. Crazy weather day. Andy ran well, and was in the 7:30 range for his final 10K. He was pretty worn out and was saving some for SGM, but overall he ran well beating a 3:05 goal he had. He passed a good amount of people while holding off everyone behind him. Good Job Nick, Sasha, Steve Cuttitta, Bill Cobler, Ben Vanbeekum, and of course Andy (all people we saw racing) and others who I didn't see.
I ended up running 11.5 miles between the cooldown and running with Andy. 18.5 miles for the day.
* Foot was sore during the warmup, but didn't hurt during the race. It was achy, but not too bad for the rest of the running. A good sign that it is nothing serious. | 