I decided yesterday to run the 5K that is part of the South Jordan Country Fest; I ran the race this morning and took 1st in my age group of 65-99. There were about 75 men runners, and I was 49th. My time was 34:32, and my average pace was 11:06. That time was 2 minutes slower than last year and 4 minutes slower than my PB. My mile splits were 10:40, 11:26, and 11:15. I started with a pace of about 10:10, and I slowed down as the race progressed. At the beginning of mile 2 there was a half mile of slight hills, and that accounts for my slower pace during that mile. I only took one 30-second walking break, after the hills in the second mile. As I slowed down, a lady who was probably in her late 40s caught up with me. She said her goal in the race was to keep up with me. We chatted during the last half mile, and when we made the turn into the last 200 yards, I told her to give it all she had. She pulled ahead of me, and I followed her over the finish line.
I think I did well, considering my circumstances. I was in bed for 6 hours last night, but I only slept off and on for an hour. This happens when ever I have something important the next morning. I usually get 3 or 4 hours sleep when I'm suffering from anxiety, and I think last night was the worst case of anxiety that I've had. The good news about my sleep is that I've been sleeping well during the past couple of weeks, and my wakeup heart rate this morning was still 52. Disruptions in my sleep usually don't affect my wakeup heart rate for a couple of days, and I'm expecting my HR to jump up to the high 50s tomorrow or Monday. The other reason why I feel good about my performance is that I haven't done a lot of fast running during the Spring. I'm currently running 4 miles three days per week, and my fastest time during the past three weeks of light speed training was a half-mile timed run of 10 minutes and a few seconds. During that three weeks I had a couple of half-mile timed runs in the 11s, and the rest were in the 12s or 13s. So, my performance in this race was in line with my training. I mentioned in this blog last week that I had decided to not run the race, but I felt good this week, and I decided to go for it. I'm glad I ran this morning.
The weather was almost perfect for the race. The race started at 6:30, and the temperature at that time was in the low 60s (F). Since the race is short, the temperature probably didn't change much during our running.