Saturday 120509 Colder Boulder 5k

5th place, 17:58. 

Disappointed in the result, but it was a good effort against how I felt today. 

I did not feel so great waking up this AM.  Slept for 10 hours and still was sluggish when I woke up.  Knew that I was piling up excuses, but decided to make a go of it anyway.  Going in, I could tell I was “off” and that this would not be a great performance day.  I am not sure why days like this happen (or why days where you float to a PR happen either).  For me it could have been a more stressful than usual week at work, a predominantly turkey diet this week, or that the moon was full.  It doesn’t matter.  I will just make of it what I can – happy that I can do this, but not necessarily happy with the result.  There is benefit in that too – that failure serves as its own motivation to me.

Warmed up really slowly (10-11 min/mile pace) for 2.5+ miles and got to the start with 3 minutes before the gun.  There was a pretty good crowd, so I lined up about five deep from the start line.  The start was a bit hesitant, and it seemed that it took a minor eternity for me to cross the line, and even longer to get out where I could begin to stride out.  I was probably in 20th to 30th place thirty seconds into the race.

The race rolls through the CU campus, all on sidewalks, with lots of turns.  The recent snow meant that there were also several spots with some slush of some sort.  There were no places with absolute ice, but there were a couple of areas where footing was not great.  Temps were cool – in the 20s probably.  The course is definitely a bit different than what it was last year because of construction on the campus.  By about 3/4 of the mile, most of the early jumpers had settled in and I worked my way up to sixth place.  Just before the mile, I took 5th.  I could see that 1-3 had already separated themselves by a good distance, but thought perhaps if I ran well I’d be able to get up to fourth.  He however slowly separated himself from me through the race. 

Mile one was 5:38.  It felt more reserved than my other opening miles in recent races – as it should – it was slower and with a net drop of 20 feet.  But I could tell I was running a bit over my head for the day.  I paid for it in the second mile with a 6:04 second mile (+35 feet).  I had hoped that by getting out easier, I’d save the fight for the last mile but the struggle continued for a 5:56 (with the biggest drop of the race: –24 feet) (17:38 for 3 miles versus 50 seconds faster than that back on Thanksgiving day).  The race actually turns and finishes indoors into the Balch Field House.  I came around the corner and saw a 17:50 and so was able to edge under 18.  Ugh.  While the race is a bit of a disappointment, it is done and it is what it is.  At worst it is a decent workout. 



Warmed down on the Boulder Creek Path for 7.5.  On the upper end I ran into FF guy Ryan P and ran down with him for a bit.  One of the things we talked about was to get after a 5k, 10k often requires quite a bit of racing those distances to get primed to pop a good one.

13+ miles on the day.