It's already been 2 weeks since Ethan and I raced the Top Pot Donut 5K at Green Lake in Seattle.
It was a grey and rainy Sunday morning as Ethan and I got up early and made the 15 minute drive from Bellevue over to Green Lake in Seattle. We quickly found parking near the starting line of the race about 45 minutes before race time and started our typical 5K warm-up routines jogging for a mile and then doing a mile of strides and 5K surge sprints to get the fast-twitch muscle fibers activated.
Coming into this race, I really didn't have high hopes for running a great time as my training intensity has been spotty especially in my tempo and interval workouts over the course of March and April. My hope coming into the race was to comfortably run 7:30's and do something around 23:00 for the 5K -- which is a slow time for me when in peak shape -- but a reasonable goal after coming off a winter of rest after 3 marathons in 2016. Ethan had just come off running a 1600 PR of 4:56 at a track meet on Thursday and was looking for something in the 18:00 range and under his cross-country PR which is around 18:30 for 5K.
There were about 2000 racers that showed up for the race so the race chute at the start of the race was a little crowded; however Ethan and I positioned ourselves within the first few rows of runners (Ethan at the front) so we could get out of the blocks quickly and not be impeded by slower runners.
At the gun we took off and Ethan quickly left me behind running his first mile in 5:45 or so. I had already lost site of him at the mile-1 marker as I crossed it at 7:05-- feeling surprisingly comfortable and locked into a good tempo and breathing pattern. I was worried I might pay for my aggressiveness but really didn't suffer too bad during the first half of mile 2; although, I felt myself slowing as the lactate was building in my legs. As we ran along the Green Lake trail on mile-2, at about 1.7 miles there's a slight hill climb of maybe 50 meters from the lake path to the road which really gassed me. I checked my garmin and saw I had slowed to 8:00 pace and my mile-2 split was up to 7:40. I did everything I could to get my pace back up and managed to re-gain some composure (with higher suffering!) and drop down to 7:31 for mile-2. With 1.1 miles to go I really tried to lock in and get my legs to turnover but I was stuck at this point at 7:30 pace and just went with it passing mile-3 in 7:30 and then picking up my pace to 6:39 over the final .14 or 220 meters or so to the finish line. My official race time was 23:04 for the 5K; however, according to Strava I ran the Top Pot Donut 5K in 22:54 according to Strave Segments (If it's not on Strava - it didn't happen -- right?). I placed 6th in the 50-55 age group (the 50-55 AG winner ran an incredible 5:31 race pace). My PR in this race from 2010 was 20:12 so I was well off that accomplishment from 7 years ago.
Ethan ran an 18:52 and 6:02 average pace having a bit of an off-race relative to his expectations. He nonetheless finished 2nd in his AG and has a nice racing t-shirt to show off for showing up. I expect Ethan to drop down into the low 17:00's this summer in road 5K's.
Next race is the Nordstrom Beat the Bridge 8K next Sunday.
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