Race Report: Birthday Bash 5K, July 23, 2023

 I ran the Birthday Bash 5K today, finishing in 22:35.  

Honestly, not my best race.  But I guess that is what rustbusters are for.

After my last race - the Garry Bjorklund Half - I took some time off and then started training again.  I've also been doing PT religiously, and it really seems like my gait has been improving.  

So I signed up for this race as a check-in.  I knew it would be a rolling course, but that would be a good chance to see how I handled downhills.

***

I jogged the first mile of the course and noted that the downhills were a bit steeper than I remembered (I haven't run this course in 7-8 years).  But I did some downhill strides and seemed to be able to run fast downhill (a big improvement on where I was previously) so that was positive.

After doing my normal warm-up (3:00 at tempo, 4x0:30 at 5K, 4x0:10 strides) I wandered over to the start and jogged with some strides until it was time to warm up.

I wasn't sure where to go, so I lined up next to two guys who were discussing goal times.  The guy on the left said he was targeting 18; the guy on the right was targeting 22.  I hoped to be somewhere in between those two times, so I thought I was in the right place.  And if I was too far back, well...it wasn't that big a race, so it wouldn't be too hard to work my way up.

***

The race started, and yup, I had started too far back.  I assumed that things would open up pretty quickly but the course was narrower than I expected and it took about half a mile for me to get enough room to run.

Once I had room I went to work - pushing the uphills and trying to run the downhills well.  I struggled with the downhills more than I had expected - essentially running downhill fast requires a lot of concentration, and it's harder to concentrate when I have other people around me.  The end result is that while my downhill running was much improved, it still wasn't good.  I still have work ahead of me.

My splits ended up being:

Mile 1: 7:35 (stuck in traffic)
Mile 2: 7:01
Mile 3: 7:03
last bit: 54 seconds.

So....not great at all.  I guess the positives are that I did run downhill a bit better, and I got my rustbuster out of the way.  

On to the next one.

Other notes:

• It was actually pretty good weather - Temperature of 68 with a dew point of 66.  In northern Virginia, that's pretty good for July.  
• I left my home around 6:30 am for the 8:00 am start, which was just about perfect.
• I wore the Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 1s for this race.  I think I really like that shoe for a 5K.