Bolder Boulder May 30 2005

15th (?) Place 32:53
Started out what felt easy, going out in 5:16, way back in the crowd. Achilles felt sore for some reason but then went away as the race went on. Then started moving through poor pacers and moving up just by keeping pace. I've noticed since college how fast people needlessly go out so have been going out much slower than I used to. You have to work hard in the middle of the race though to catch the pack but if you can make that surge it seems to work well. So after the first mile, I ran 5:22, 5:20, then 5:16 on the hilliest mile. The course had a decent rise, going up a couple hundred feet from the start. Then ran a nice 5:06 5th mile to pass through the 5 mile in about 26:20. From there I inexplicably just cruised it in, should have thrown it in that last gear that I felt I had but instead ran about a 5:25 last mile. My achilles was real sore afterwards but then ice helped alot as it always does.

Felt I ran poorly mentally, I could have been pushing much harder but was sitting back a bit. I should have ran faster at the end but also needed to run harder in mile 2 and 3 to put me higher up in the race. But I was happy with the time considering I felt I had a bit more.This is probably a 10k PB when you do an altitude conversion, beating my old 31:18 from way back--sophomore year America East 10k.
I'm going to run a 5k next weekend, which should be a very competitive race. It's the Colorado-Wyoming USATF championsip and past winners have run around 14:40. Hopefully I can turn it on mentally and get in a good one.