FARC Winter Series 5K

My first race of the year was supposed to be more of a fast training run, but ended up with a totally unexpected result, my only 3rd time ever under 23 minutes! Last time I did under-23, Bush was still president...

Last spring I had a broken toe and couldn't run for 2 months, which kinda set me back quite a lot in running speed. The best I could do last year was 23:29, so for this training race, my secret goal was to beat that time, although, being the off-season, I would've been happy with 23:40.

It's a low-key winter series in Freehold, NJ, just $5 entrance fee (no tshirts, but good spread for Dunkin Donuts). I wanted to do a race, so I get some competitive workout, but the previous weekends it was incredibly cold, so this was the first warmer weekend of the year (mid 30's). The nice weather attracted more runners than usual, probably around 150.

Disaster struck right at the start, as my Garmin battery died. As some of you know, I'm a total slave to gadgets, and can't properly function without a constant input of numbers... So I was left to following my gut and trying to gauge my effort based on intuition. It's not just the pace that I'm missing, but not knowing where I am in the race, how much more I have, and how much energy I should still save.

So I went out hard (like usual), and got a 7:00 first mile. I was following this guy that I knew from other races, and he seemed untouchable, until around mid-point, where I got ahead and never saw him again until the finish. Around Mile 2 it got very hard... 2nd mile was 7:30 and I had a hard time maintaining my pace. Then with about half a mile to go, as I was fading away, my friend Tom came from behind and pushed me on the final stretch. I went over my limits, to match him stride for stride, and this resulted in another 7:30 mile (I probably recovered over that last half mile). Tom easily outkicked me, but I got a surprising and completely unexpected 22:50!!

22:50 is my 3 fastest time, and fastest in 15 months! And it's only the beginning of the season. I wasn't seeing myself going under 23 too soon, maybe towards the end of the season, but from here it can only get better! The race was a great morale boost to start the season!