Early morning as I had to put the turkey in the oven befor running out the door for the race. Cold and windy conditions. Temp was 33 with 20 mph winds. I wasn't feeling my best as I fell asleep on the couch and spent the night twisted up like a pretzel. Add the fact that I'm dealing with some sort of bronchille issue and it was a recipe for a poor performance.
Only did a mile warm up as I was running late to the start. By the end of it I was going through my normal hacking up a lung ritual. Luckily it tends to last only long enough to bring up the nasty's and then I'm fine again until I lie down.
There were a surprising number of good runners who showed up this morning. I usualy finish in the top 5 with no worry but I could tell right away that the top 10 would be quick. Having left my Garmin home I have no idea what my splits were. I thought today would be a good day to run sans watch as my times have been consistent to the point of scary. I'm just starting to wonder if I run too much by the clock and not enough by my training and how I feel. Last month I ran a hillier cousre in 18:42 by myself in practise so you would think a real race would be a bit quicker. 18:38 is a bit quicker but not by much.
I went out hard for the firstmile as I didn't want to lose contact with the leaders. Sadly my legs just wouldn't respond after that. I used the hill at mile2 to star making a move on the three runners in front of me and managed to close the gap from about 200 yards to 50 but then course went into a tight turn and I tweeked my hammy a bit.rounding the corner. It forced me to hld back on the down hill leading into the finish. It was sad to watch the 3 men in front of me pull away but it's just a turkey day 5k. No need to get hurt. I suppose if I had realy wanted 2nd I wouldn't have yelled at them as they started taking a wrong turn at the bottom of the hill.
I'm pretty happy with my effort but a little frustrated with my lack of speed. The legs just don't want to turn over any quicker. I guess I'll have to do some more core work and hit the track if I realy want to improve. | 