Achilles St. Patricks Day 5k

Race Summary

Race Date	March 12, 2017
Race Stats	Chip Time: 20:07.6
Format	5k Road Running
Would do again?	Probably

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Normally I wouldn't enter a 5k race simply because they are too short and I'm not much of a sprinter (yes I consider a 5k a sprint). At a minimum, I'd do a 10k (unless it's a trail run) because that is the race distance for my triathlons. If it was strictly a road race, I would register for half marathons or 10-milers. I've done marathons in the past, and I'm not sure if I really want to race marathons again...A fun marathon would be enticing though...like Disney's series or Marathon du Medoc. I entered this run because it was sponsored by the running club I run with Blacktoe Running and that I got a free entry because I helped pace another one of their races earlier in the season.

The run was pretty straightforward; start at Steam Whistle Brewing, go west to Spadina, north to Wellington, then east to Yonge then loop back. The goal for the run was to go sub 20mins, but realistically I would be sub 21mins.

This was the first time I ran a race with a GPS watch so instead of my standard, go hard to break from the pack, then just try to maintain position, I tried to keep an even pace throughout the race. I knew what pace I had to hit, so I tried to be disciplined and stick to that pace. That obviously failed. When we started, I saw runners part of the club that is generally slower than me that were peeling away. For some reason, I couldn't allow this so I went faster than I wanted to in the first kilometer to get ahead. At this point, I figured why not and tried to keep the pace, because who slows down in a race? What I didn't anticipate though was how cold and windy the weather was. By the time I hit the turn around, I couldn't feel anything with my hands to the point that it hurt to open them.

The turn around was a hairpin turn, which I'm not used to and I ended up slowing down significantly. This may sound almost negligible but in retrospect, this is where I could have improved on to shave off a second or two, which makes a difference for such a short distance. On the run back, every time I crossed an intersection, I felt I was buffeted more by the wind than I wanted. The combination of the wind, cold, and not feeling my hands made me pretty miserable and I started to question my training.

Luckily my competitive nature kicked in before that mentality could fester; a visually impaired runner was slowly passing me after the turnaround. I have nothing against those that are handicapped, but my pride simply couldn't allow it. I got out of my rut and focused on calculating what needed to get done; at that point, nothing else mattered. I picked up my pace again (I learned I could change my gait to shorter strides to give me a higher cadence and speed) and got ahead of everyone who just passed me. Coming to the last kilometer a fellow blacktoe runner (from the race team) caught up to me and was taking the lead. Between her and I, we were jockeying for position until the last stretch between Spadina and steam whistle. In the last 200m, I tried to surge ahead giving everything I could to create a big enough gap, but I couldn't hold it. She apparently surged at the same time I did and literally beat me by a stride.

Despite the harsh weather and the rut of being pushed so hard and wanting to stop, it was a pretty fun race. The race ended with a beer (best drink to give a runner at the end imo) and some chili. It's a bit disappointing that I was only 8s away from sub 20mins, but regardless of how much I think about it, I'm not sure where I could have shaved off that many seconds. Ah well, back to tri-training.