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Couples Classic 5K

February 10, 2018 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 40, dry, no wind?

Comments:
This little local race is one of those fitness stimuli that I'm doing this spring, and it turned into a super-competitive 5K! CA and I ran in this team event, and it was a good season debut for her, too.

Two laps around a rec center in NW Eugene. Despite the 9 turns, it was flat-and-fast course, for sure.

Warmed-up 2.5 miles, then did some stuff indoors in the rec center, which was nice. Both and home and there, I did:

- back and hip mobility (including leg swings)
- core (ab, glute) activation
- hip extension exercises
- SCOOTING! Working on the pelvic depression-extension

I felt it helped, but it didn't help me from being smoked by the Masters Fast Guys - the entire group I now workout with, along with a couple other guys, including my former coworker, Justin - the ultimate grinder.

Race Recap
The field strung out pretty quickly, with Justin right up front with Josh Gordon and John McKay (who lead our training group). And like Tuesdays, it was then Orin, Orestes and David, then a few others.

I soon fell into a mini pack of two other guys: one younger, skinny dude, and Peter Stice (also young, and a mid-distance standout, who's not super-fit right now). Leo snuck up on us before floating past.

Around an s-curve, then two rights onto the back stretch of the rectangle course got us to the mile, which we hit in 5:25 maybe? These were marked (non GPS) points.

From there, Peter began to fall off, so I pushed past, with Oscar - the skinny dude (who turns out to be a freshman at SEHS). We worked together for the next 1.5 miles, at least, around a full lap. The field strung out, with only Leo and the first woman, Jenn Randall.

Side note: this is the woman who finished maybe 20s behind me at that cross country 5K we ran in May. She's gotten fitter (and me, slower).

Oscar and me hit the two mile in 10:5x (I'm not sure I trust that manual split, as my watch beeped far after).

I worked SUPER-hard to be form-focused:

- THE HINGE: pretty good, but I could feel myself lose it
- ARM SWING: same: I could feel it get sloppy, swivly or otherwise slow
- PAWBACK: trying to get my hips behind me

Things got dicey on the backstretch, when we came upon the walkers. As we weaved around them, I managed to push past Oscar, to the 3-mile mark. This split sucked:

16:4x?

That's when I knew those earlier splits were too good to be true.

The finish weaved through the enter of "the block", back to the rec center: through some bits of grass and onto a bike path. I could hear some breaths and stomps behind me and I tried to out-kick it, but...Peter Stice reappeared and nipped me at the line.

17:19.

Solid...but lackluster.

CA came in at 19:0x, looking good! Two other coaching clients -- Alexis and Laura Lee -- also ran, with their husbands, and they looked pretty good, too.

Post-race: chatted with folks, then ran maybe a half mile with CA before she had to jet off to the Urban Farm.

I'm neither super-disappointed, or happy with this. On one hand, it's solid. On the other...I simply MUST be faster than this.

Watch splits:
5:32
5:37
5:32