Another Race....

Quick report this past Saturday's 5 Mile race in Central Park:

I wasn't necessarily planning on racing again this weekend but after doing the 5 miler last weekend I felt like I had left something out on the table, in terms of race strategy and my overall feelings about the race. So I went out this weekend with the goal of doing the race as a hard tempo, but frankly the differences between my race and "tempo race" efforts aren't that significant, it's more of just a difference in training the week leading up to the race and mentality once it starts. For "tempo races" I don't curtail my mileage at all the week of the race, and in fact might end up running a lot of mileage because my biggest speed work session comes at the end of the week in the form of the race, and I'm just a lot more relaxed about things on race day. In any case that is what Saturday was. I was reasonably happy with finishing in 30:25, which was only 15 seconds off of last week's race. I felt a lot stronger out there though this time and really felt in control as I kept telling myself during the race, it's ok to save up for the last mile or mile and a half to really work on a good kick and getting a strong feeling about the race. It was also a good bit hotter than last week and without cloud cover as the temps hit the upper 70s. Anyway I finished the race feeling pretty good (except for this darn hip stiffness after I finished again) and was able to outkick five or six people in the last quarter mile to move into the top 50 in the race.