I wasn’t sure I’d be ready to run fast since I still felt sluggish just yesterday, although I think that was the Thursday night cold open water swim talking. So I ditched the Friday easy ride and just figured I’d show up and do what I could today. As it turned out, I felt pretty good. Not blazing fast, but strong.
I so rarely do open 10k’s that I’ve never officialy broken 40 minutes, which is crazy because I should be able to run 38-something. Truth be told, I really wanted to run under 39 minutes. So when I got my supposedly 1 mile split (at the top of a hill), I was surprised to hear 5:52. What? Mile two was 11:40. OK. Either I’m going ridiculously fast (unlikely) or these are wrong (likely). I decided to ignore these splits, except to entertain myself when I was supposedly still holding under 6 min miles (unlikely) by mile 5.
The two loop course took us up a big hill in the first and fourth miles. It was a tricky hill that was steeper at the base and looked like it ended before it actually did. The hill felt steeper the second time, and my GPS 4 mile split showed it by being about 30 seconds slower than miles 1, 2 and 3. According to the GPS, I did hit close to 6′s in the first 3 miles, which is pretty good considering it didn’t feel hard to do, although I did slow on the second loop.
When I crossed the finish line in 36:37, it was abundantly clear the course was short. By how much was the big question. The shortage will be posted with the results later, so time will tell. As they say. 
P.S. For an amazing 5k, check out this video of Shalane Flanagan setting a new American Record. Phenomenal.
Do you wanna know what’s really sad? I went to youtube to watch the 5k video (was hoping to get a bigger image) and I couldn’t find ANYTHING about Shalane Flanagan!
Of course, what you forget to mention is that Shalene has morphed herself into an entire person with two legs the size of my right thigh. That chick is LEAN ! Oh to run that fast! I only dream!