So, over the past few weeks where I have not been blogging(my bad), I was racing a good amount of cross country races around the area, and the day before Tri the Worx Triathlon, I traveled to Mr. Overton's house to run the ECU Pirate Invitational. Yes, you did hear me, Mr. Overton himself, of Overton's, the marine store.
We arrived on-site, which happened to be Mr. Overton's backyard, and were greeted by around 15 other teams starting to set up on the grassy field where the start and finish were supposed to be held. Some of my buddies helped me carry our school tent to our spot, where we set up and then got to warming up. As we ran together, me and some friends discussed our goals for the race: we all wanted to break 18 minutes for the 5k. Not an easy task, by any extend of the goal, but we wanted to perform really well at this big meet. The course was mostly flat except for a big hill you had to climb at the start, again at mile 1, and again finally coming into mile 3. We started to get hyped for a great race.
We were running along, when we heard the gun-the girls went in the first race, and so we were able to watch our friends do extremely well under high pressure conditions, and they really did perform well! The girls ended up getting second overall, in the overall points rankings.
Now, for the guys race. We got up to the line, and they shot the gun. A pack of myself, and those 4 guys from my school all went out together, trying to stay away from going out too fast and to stay on pace for just below 18 minutes. As we came through the crowd of spectators, we looked great-a pack of 5 Middle Creek runners going by and looking strong. But, as we got closer to mile 1, I realized we weren't going as fast as we needed to in order to break 18. So, I started to pull away from my group. They called me back, saying I was going too fast, but I yelled back "We're off pace!" and kept running. As I ran, I picked off runners ahead of me, and started my race strategy: to negative split. I got closer to mile 3, and I looked at my watch, almost discouraging myself, because I miscalculated and thought I wouldn't make it under the 18 minute mark. But, as I neared the finish line chute, I saw I was still under 18! I gave it all I had left and sprinted in to a 17:40 5k, a PR for me. Also, this had been one of the major runs since my accident. At the end of the day, all that extra effort that went into negative splitting and passing people helped put me in the top 10, finishing 9th in a big field of runners from all over the state. I was very pleased with this, and I am hungry to continue racing and improving very well!
Good luck with all of your winter training guys, because the sun is starting to hide from us.
Happy training!
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