There were a couple of things that I forgot to mention about this past weekend’s race. Mainly, this was the first time that I’ve done a race without walking a single step - and I felt fine. Doing the 7 miler with only a couple of walk stops has helped, and I’d like to cut that down to only one break, then none at all, which should make doing the 5K a complete non-issue.

The bad part was that drinking sucessfully was a problem - much more difficult than it looks. I’m not entirely sure how to practice this, except by running a lot of 5Ks. Still, it looks like this season I will be running a lot of 5Ks, so this problem may take care of itself. I’ve heard the theory - pinch the cup, take a mouthful, then swallow - but its not as easy as it sounds (and it doesn’t actually even sound that easy).

In the future, I may not worry about drinking during a 5K. This time though, I was pretty dehydrated before the start - way far from peeing clear - so I figured that it was something I ought to do. While I’m admitting weakness, I was also really tight that morning. Luckily I got to the race early enough to stretch for quite a while, since it wasn’t until about 10 minutes before the start that my ITB began to settle down - and I still felt it on the banked curves. I’m really looking forward to the day when I can just ignore that particular issue other than preventative stretching.

My new goal for this race season is to break 25:00 for the 5K. That basically means that I need to run a consistent 8:00 mile, which should be very doable for me with a reasonably comfortable amount of speedwork since I’m at about 8:30 right now. And hey, if I can lose my last 10 pounds, that would just make it that much easier. In fact, that’s just an interim goal - by the end of the season (ie: 2005 Motorola Marathon) I want to be down to 22:00, or about a 7:00 mile. That’s what I’d need - with some distance training as well - to qualify for the faster corral at next year’s Cap 10 (45:00 10k).

Finally, as I post-mortem the race, I’m thinking that I probably should have raced it a little more. I was doing 3/2 breathing for most of it, and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have done 2/2 for the whole way - or at least the second half? I know that I put out more effort for my BagelFest run last month than I did for this one, and its bugging me. I’m also thinking that falling in beside someone, while comfortable, was not such a great idea - I may have been slowing myself down a little to do so.

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