Portland Winter 5K

Today was a lot of fun. It was the first race of the year for the Team and was well attended. My primary goal for the race was to complete it with a good time, anything around the 24:00 or 25:00 mark would have been fine. But in the back of my mind I really wanted to set a new PR for the 5K.

The news reported that the temperature would be in the mid 20’s but with the wind blowing 1000 miles per hour it made it feel much colder. Luckily I had gone to Playmakers Semi-Annual Sidewalk Sale last night and loaded up on a bunch of winter running schwag. I was probably too layered up for a longer run as I did start to get a little warm at the end, but all in all I felt very comfortable.

I knew I started out a little too fast when I crossed the first mile mark and the starter yelled out 7:30. For those of you who aren’t regular readers of the blog, that’s generally my fastest pace when I run a Tempo Run, and I only hold that for about 5 minutes. How the heck was a going to keep that up for 2 more miles? The next thought that raced through my brain was… “Well if I can just keep up a similar pace or even slow slightly I should be able to set a new PR”.

So all was good except I was breathing really hard and by the end of miles two I knew the last miles would be a struggle. The other hard part was there was a long straightaway in the last mile. I could see happy, faster runners way down the way which was a little discouraging. But I gutted through it and was able to set a new PR… 23:07. That beat my Thanksgiving Day Run by 1:09. Not bad over 3 miles.

I feeling pretty confident about Miami, but am now wishing it would just hurry up and get here. Arg!

3.16 miles/22:58/Avg 7:15