Very windy day...blowing 20+mph. At the first turn-around there were 3 of us together so we started taking turns pulling the line. About 1.25 miles in we turned and were better sheltered froim the wind. The other two guys opened about 20m on me. Just before the 2-mile mark we turned back into the wind but they were just a bit too far ahead for me to catch considering the wind in my face. From there they slowly pulled away and finished about 15-20 seconds ahead. I'd say that 1/2 of the last mile was directly into the wind.

If anything, I might have pushed a little harder to stay with the two guys that pulled on me around the 1.5 mile mark. They both finished barely sub-18min. I just wasn't sure that I could hang with them the rest of the race and figurred that I could do more harm than good overall if I pushed to stay with them. Knowing where they finished I probably should have gone with them and would have been sub-18 mtself. As it was I ended up fighting the wind myself. The limiting factor through most of the race for me was my back getting a little sore and my lungs...my legs didn't burn or tire at all until the last 300m when I was pushing as hard as I could.

Tried not to fall over :) Drank some sports drink, stretched out, had a bagel, banana, and coffee.


I think I ran about the best race my body was capable of considering I have ZERO speed training so far this season (aside from the duathlon a couple weeks ago). I'm no where near tuned for this type of short speed and had no intention of being there. This was just a local 5k that fit my schedule so I figured I'd jump in and see what I could do early in the season.


Small local race at the University. Not a lot of really fast guys aside from the overall winner. The guy that won ran 17:26. I talked with him after and he said it was a relaxed run for him...he has been doing his tempo work at 5:20 mile pace so this was essentially a short tempo run. The overall female winner was a student at the University...cute and very fast...19:24.