[Race Report] Holly Springs Police Department 5k

Race information

• What? Holly Springs Police Department 5k
• When? September 17, 2016
• How far? 5k
• Website? [race website goes here]

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	19:59.9	Yes
B	Place in Age Group	Yes
C	Match 5-week-old PR of 20:45	Yes

Training

I really haven't done anything in particular to train for the 5k distance. I've been working my way through the Hanson's Advanced Marathon plan with the Outer Banks Marathon on November 13th as my goal. In the process, I wanted to find a tune-up race to judge my fitness level. Unfortunately, there weren't any good 10k/10mi/HM distance races in the area and so I figured a local 5k would work.

Pre-race

Race was at 8am, so I woke up at 5:45am, had oatmeal and coffee, puttered around the house reading news, then hobby-jogged the mile and a quarter over to the police station where we were starting from to get there around 7:30. I hung out with friends, chatted about our respective goal times, and then I had some water and ran about another half mile throwing in some strides to stay warmed up.

Race strategy

I ran another local 5k back on August 20th (5 weeks prior) and set a new PR (going from 21:43 -> 20:45 in the process). I came in 23rd overall, 2nd in my Age Group (30-34 males). I knew that the high school cross country kids weren't going to be around for this race due to a meet, but there were plenty of other faster folks who I had to worry about.

My goal was to find someone who was going sub-20 and stick to their shoulder and hope they'd bring me in 19:59.9 or better.

Mile [#1]

We lined up, the wheelchair runners took off, and about a minute later it was our turn. I was in the front row of the pack and immediately set off at a comfortable but not too fast pace. The first quarter mile was a slight down-hill, so I didn't want to kill myself. As we take the second turn (two turns in the first tenth of a mile), I realize I'm the lead male (there was a kid, maybe 10 years old, a bit ahead of me). I look back over my shoulder, see there are about a dozen guys within 5 yards of me, but none are looking like they're gunning to take the lead right that second. I mentally shrug and decide I'll play along for now and chase the police motorcycle leading us through. I passed the ten year old about thirty yards later, making me the lead runner.

The first mile was mostly downhill - a few bumps up, but pretty much flat or down throughout. I was running strong throughout, avoiding looking at my watch until the mile split, and was just trying not to go out too fast so that when I got passed, I'd be able to hang with the fast guys. I hit the mile at 6:07 and could see the second place guy about 5-10 yards behind me and staying strong.

Mile [#2]

The second mile had a lot of sweeping gradual uphills as we went deeper into the neighborhood. Some friends of mine were out in front of their house in unicorn and horse masks cheering us on, which was amusing, but between the hills and the pace, I didn't really have much in me to acknowledge aside from a finger wave.

I briefly passed the motorcycle at one point about 1.5 miles in - as we came down a hill, he slowed to chat with the police officer acting as a course guide and I zoomed down the hill faster than he anticipated and got a few steps ahead of him before he caught back up and passed me again.

I hit the second mile at 6:28 for the split and saw during a turn that the second place guy had dropped to about 15-20 yards behind me. I still figured that the fast guys must be back there somewhere, waiting to make a move, but decided again that I'd hold the lead as long as I could.

Mile [#3]

For the third mile, I was very firmly entering the pain cave. Breathing hurt, it was mostly an uphill mile, so I knew that I needed to keep ramping up my perceived effort in an attempt to simply keep my pace constant. The thought briefly entered my head that "Maybe I should just take a walk break" before the "don't be a wimp" mantra started being my refrain for the rest of the run. I wasn't capable of calculating splits, figuring out what my finish time was going to be, or anything else. I just wanted to keep holding on to the run and hopefully not blow up before I crossed the finish line.

The course was a bit short - my watch hit mile 3 at 6:23 for the split as I could see the finish line and was sprinting toward it, realizing that it said 18:5x on the board. I threw what little I had into the finish, crossing the line at 19:00. Garmin claims the course was 3.02 and my friends all showed between 3.01 and 3.05 for the course, depending on how well they hit the tangents.

Post-race

I crossed the line, caught a handshake from the police captain who organizes their run club, and immediately switched into "OH MY GOD DON'T PUKE" mode.

I knew I led the whole race, that nobody passed me, but I somehow hadn't realized that I'd won the race. I wasn't supposed to win the race. I was supposed to try for an age group win and sub-20, not 19:00 and first overall. The second place guy came in at 19:41 and said he was hoping to stick on my shoulder throughout but faded hard at the second mile. Third place male was at 20:07. Gotta love small races! We had 203 finishers overall and a woman from my run club got first female.

Her goal when we were talking pre-race? "I'd love to do sub-24" - she finished in 22:48.

Turns out that everyone's comments in "How to PR the 5k" were absolutely correct. Train hard for a marathon and you'll PR the shit out of the 5k.

I hung out for a while, wondering if there was going to be an awards ceremony, but there wasn't. Instead, I got to fist bump the police chief (and ask if I got a badge and gun as my prize, sadly no) and took a post race antlers picture since I was too far gone mentally to do so when I actually crossed the line (and there doesn't appear to be a picture of me crossing the line anyway).

What's Next?

Well, no more races between now and Outer Banks in mid-November, but that was a huge confidence boost. My finish time from this race claims I can do a 3:15 marathon, but I don't believe it. It does give me the confidence to more firmly plan on a 3:30 marathon though. And while I know that all of the fast guys didn't show up to run today, it's finally starting to sink in (a day and a half later) that I'm not that slow and holy shit I won. That's crazy.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/715270900

This report was generated using race reportr, a tool built by /u/BBQLays for making great looking and informative race reports.