Ran the 5k at the Salt Air half. I was planning on running no harder than necessary to win, and that's what I did. While driving up, I was bummed when I saw Chris Rushing running along the course, putting in what looked like a rather hard effort warmup. I hadn't seen his name on the list yesterday, but figured he had just signed up that morning and knew that I would have virtually no chance of beating him if he was in shape. As it turns out, he did sign up that morning, but accidentally started the half marathon instead of the 5k. He apparently didn't realize he was in the wrong race until he was the only one to turn around at the halfway point, so he just ran it in and decided not to do the 5k right away afterwards.
Once the actual 5k started, 2 kids took off rather hard, one looking more serious, and the other wearing basketball shorts. I tailed them by a second or two and we hit the quarter mile at hair over 5:00 pace, at which point the kid in basketball shorts started to slow down. The other kid and I passed basketball shorts guy and I tucked in right behind him. We split the mile in an easy 5:40. I continued to let him dictate the pace and just sat a step behind him until 1.25, when I noticed that we had slowed to 6:15 pace, with a tail-wind, and I pulled up along side him. My original plan was to go at 2 to 2.5 miles, so as not to leave it to a sprint, but when I chatted with him about the upcoming headwind after the turnaround and noticed that he was already breahthing heavily, I decided to take off at the halfway point. When we turned around, I sprinted for about 10 seconds into the wind to see what he would do, and he immediately fell off, so i picked it up just enough to gap him about 20 seconds in the remainder of the mile and then eased off. Mile 2 was 5:57, which meant that I ran the 2nd half at about 5:44 into a strong headwind, probably the hardest effort portion of the race. At mile 2, I realized that I easily had it won, so I backed off and jogged in a very comfortable 6:09 3rd mile, with a slightly sub-6 last .07 (I had 3.07 total on my Garmin, and the markers were definitely not accurate).
Anyway, other than the rather quick sprint start, that felt extremely easy. I just wanted to win, and I did. Of course, I feel bad for Chris Rushing, as he ran faster than my winning time, even after realizing halfway through that he wasn't even in the right race. The timer had him at 17:24, but I could have sworn that he told me he was sub-17, so I have no idea. In any case, I wouldn't have won had he been in the right race, but I'll still take it. Right after the race, I picked up my skis from having their edges sharpened, a chip filled, and the bottoms waxed, which cost $45, so the $50 went to a good cause. :) Oh, and I picked up a pair of Type A6 with the prototype A7 sole from Andrea, courtesy of Jake, right before the race. I put them on, jogged to the start, raced in them, and loved them. Thanks Jake! I'll make sure to do some damage to them!
Maybe 3/4 of a mile before the race, a little over 2 afterwards. Later in the day, 5.5 up and down City Creek with Holly at very slow (8:30) pace and then another 3.5 on my own at 6:50 pace. Did 14.25 of the 15 in the new shoes from Jake and I'm really liking them.
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