Matt and I lined up with Chris (another track regular) on a cold, clear March 19th morning with one goal: pace Matt to a sub-17:00 5K, a mark he has been trying unsuccessfully to hit for more than a year. I was coming off of a fairly chilled-out recovery week after my hard effort the previous weekend, so I was pretty sure I would be able to cruise through this time trial effort without any problems.

We started our three-man race (four, including Jon, who didn't go the full distance with us) with heads down into a bit of a headwind, and went through the turn at the half-mile mark in 2:35. This was significantly closer to my typical race pace than it was to our goal pace of 5:20 per mile, so we backed off a little and came through the first mile right at 5:20. From there, we picked up the pace a hair to get moving at the right speed. We hit the turn-around of the out-and-back course and had to start working hard into the wind again.

Matt sat right on my heels and drafted, conserving as much energy as he could, as I tore up the road and hit the two-mile mark at 10:44. This was a bit slower than we had hoped, but our goal pace gave us some padding in case the conditions proved to be more challenging than we thought. With a half-mile to go, I crested the small incline on the course and turned out of the wind to cruise for home at 14:04. Matt had dropped off of my pace a bit in the previous quarter-mile, but he was not far down. After hitting that final turn, I ignited the afterburners and closed with a 2:30 800 meters to cross the line in 16:34. Matt used most of his 30-second cushion to finish in 16:50, a solid effort on a cold day and his best pre-season 5K time since early 2004. Chris finished respectably at 17:09.

I have one more race before the duathlon season starts - the Meteor 10K in Dearborn Heights on April 1st. I will be looking to set another running PR there, and will have lots of fast guys to run with.