decided to try a local small town race here today in Berthoud, Colorado, just up the road from Denver. Weather was perfect again, low 60s and light breezes at the start. Course looked really flat on mapmyrun, so I wanted to see what I could do off of short rest from BolderBoulder earlier this week. kids race started at 8 with the 5k set to begin "when the kids race finished" so no official start time - that was kind of odd. I guessed we'd get under way at 8:15 and warmed up aiming for that, turns out thats almost exactly when we started. Had my watch set to kilometers and this time my splits saved, so that was a positive. goal was to hit 3:30s throughout and shoot for a 17:30. First k was 3:23, felt super easy , 2nd was 3:35, 3rd was 3:39, started slipping a little off the pace. Had one guy out front of me and we were doing the accordian, where he would come back to me then pull ahead - I ran the whole race sure I was going to pass him but never did, that was kind of a bummer. 3k was in 10:37, 7 seconds above pace. Then the course had a slight downhill for the 2k, but so gradual it was hard to notice. went 3:32 and 3:35 for these splits, so 17:47, and yet the race wasn't done yet. Still ran for another .15-.2 of a mile and crossed the line in 18:27 or something. The course was actually around 3.25 or 3.3 miles, the winner had the same thing. Luckily since I had my watch at km splits, I stopped it at 5.02 and thats the 17;47 I got - so I am going with that as my unofficial 5k split for this race. It's always frustrating when races are clearly longer or shorter (in this case, long by at least 40-45 seconds). It was for a good cause though, and it was a beautiful morning to run, so aside from the annoying fact that our "official" times are all reflective of the actual 3.3 distance, I enjoyed the race. Overall, having clocked a legit 17:47, that is an unofficial altitude PR (this race was at 5000 feet, a little lower than denver). I am happy with that time and although not quite the 17:30 i was shooting for, I have to remember I just ran a very strong BolderBoulder earlier this week and so I'll take the speedwork today. Cooled down for 6.2 for a total of 12.5 on the day. Marathon a week from tomorrow!
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