New 5k PR. Woot Woot

Yesterday was my second 5k of the year and it was a much bigger race than the first one. Last year the top 5 guys at this race were all under 15 minutes so I knew it was going to be a fast race. I went into the race hoping to be in the low 16's and maybe even under 16 if I had a great race. I did my usual warmup and got everything ready. I lined up towards the front and the gun went off. I was about a .5 mile into the race and noticed that there was a pack of guys that were running just a tad faster than I, and I was only about 5 - 10 seconds behind that pack. Usually I am the "inbetweener" that gets stuck between the packs and I run by myself for the whole race. But I decided I would surge and sit in that front pack. Now I was not with the leaders because they were ahead of this pack but this was the first pack. I hit the first mile in 4:52, which is by far the fastest I've ever gone through the mile for a 5 k race. It didn't feel like I was killing myself to do it, so I just tried to stay relaxed and pass a few other guys. I kept my pace, passed a few guys, and made my way through that first pack. I looked at the 2nd mile and got really scared. It said 9:35, haha. I looked at the guy beside me and he told me the obvious, that the 2nd mile mark was WAY short. I just kept rolling and worked with one guy to keep our pace up. It really started to hurt with about a 1/2 mile to go. I looked at my watch at 14:45 and could see the finish line about 1/4 mile away. I picked up the pace as much as I could and crossed the finish line to see 15:50. I was really happy with this considering I have not done any speed work and I really didn't expect to be under 16. This was a 5 second PR and I haven't ran this fast for a 5k in almost 3 yrs. I guess all of that hard work this winter is already paying off. And after the race I got to come back to Lexington to go for an "easy" 2 hr ride, but that's hard to do with gusts of up to 35 mph, and a steady wind at 26 mph. Needless to say, it wasn't as easy as I wanted. And all of that work yesterday made for a not so fun long run this morning. But all I have left is an easy swim in about an hour. Then I get to study more, YAY.

Tony