First race of the season! Matt West (one of my Team Cadence Cycle teammates) and I drove up to Okemos, which is close to Lansing, for the Super Bowl 5K, run by the Playmakers Performance Footwear store. The store is humongous... I wish we had something like that around here. We got there fairly early, warmed up by running the first mile of the course, and did our pre-race plyo routine. The course itself was a little rolling, through a residential neighborhood. Very attractive area, too, so it made the run less boring - not that a hard 5K effort is ever boring.

From a time standpoint, I did pretty well. Our goal was to run 17 flat, and I came in at 16:39, which bodes well for the rest of the season. Matt finished in 17:12, not too far off the goal. We should both do quite well in next Saturday's Valentine's Run that the Track Club is hosting in Gallup Park. I can't see either of us finishing outside the top five, unless we get surprised by some unknown speedster.

From a tactical standpoint, however, it was a pretty big defeat. I went out hard with the race leaders in 5:10, and ran in fourth place from the one-mile mark through the middle of the second mile. At about the two-mile mark, I started cramping pretty severely in the stomach, and I let myself slip off pace a bit. The third place guy, who I was gaining on, was able to run away from me. At that point, I mentally gave up, letting the fourth place guy pass me in the last third of a mile.

I know I should be happy with my time, but I wish I had run a more solid tactical race. Ultimately, I think I ate too close to start time: I was eating Fig Newtons on the ride there, up to about 1.5 hours to go. I should know better, since I never got away with that margin of time in high school. Live and (re)learn, I suppose. All in all, not a terrible way to kick off the season... at least I know I've already got decent speed in my legs!