Notes
First race of the season and a great way to start! I came into the race hoping to run anywhere between 11-11:20 but not really sure what was going to happen since I've only had a 3k time trial (11:35), one 30 min tempo run, one Tuesday workout, and a bunch of easy runs/long runs to prepare for this. I had all day to prepare for the race since we got there at like 10am and I didn't race until like 4:15. Originally waiting this long made me tired and more nervous but I think in the end it was good because it gave me a chance to eat/hydrate all day.
Hydrating didn't matter too much because the air was super dry for the first few laps of the race. I went out with the top 3 girls because I knew one of them was seeded at 10:50 so I was hoping she could pull me along. This worked out well because I think the splits for the first few laps were like 42-43. Going into the second half I knew I was slipping more into like 44-46 splits. I saw out of the corner of my eye going into the last lap the clock was at like 10:14 so I knew I needed a fast lap if I wanted to PR even by a little bit. My lifetime PR is 11:00.99 ran at GVSU last year so I will take this as a great place to start and put in some more good work moving forward and hope I can stay healthy and keep dropping time. I need to work on making the middle/end of the race a little harder on myself and not falling into a easier pace so I can PR by more than a few seconds.
I knew I was in 4th for a majority of the race but I guess the 3rd place girl must have died somewhere along the way because I ended up finishing in 3rd. This was good because like 50m into the race she bumped me out of the way and said out loud she was cutting me off. There were a lot of other slower girls in the heat which was also helpful to have people to catch up to. It was also helpful hearing the splits. And it was also helpful to hear Julia and Emily cheering for me every lap when they were running around the outside of the track. My mom, dad, and Straw came to watch which of course made this race even better and I'm happy I could give them a good race to watch.
Followed by a wine night with Straw back in Chicago :-)