NC One Mile Championships

Goal #1: Top 3
Goal #2: sub 5:05

Actual:
3+ mile warmup
1 mile race in 4:53, 1st place, $350
~6 mile cool down for 10.5 miles total

As you can see from my goals above, I had no idea what kind of mile shape I was in. I have not been doing any workouts remotely close to mile speed, let along 5k speed.  I knew that I had run a 5:09 opening mile at the Hot Summer Night's 5k back in August, so I figured low 5:00 would be within a reasonable window.  After a nice afternoon hanging out with Garrett, Michelle and Thomas at their house, we drove to the race together and warmed up.  I scoped out my competition comprised mainly of former NC State runners Kris Vegh and Andi Cozzarelli.  Of course, a mile race is a total gamble because someone that isn't typically a factor in a longer race could totally blow my wheels off in this short of a race.  I dediced the best bet was to just run as hard as I could since it was only going to be five minutes of pain.

The gun went off and I took off to tuck in behind the leaders.  We formed somewhat of a goose V formation, and I was off the right shoulder of the leader.  After 500m in, we rounded the first of six turns, and without any extra effort from me, I was suddenly ahead of the pack.  I guess that practice of taking turns hard for the Olympic Trials Marathon really helped me out in this race.  I was stunned actually that it was that easy to take the lead. I  eased up even a little bit after the second turn to see if anyone would try to pull up alongside me.  No one did, so I just kept accelerating as much as possible through the turns, and taking them kind of wide to allow for that.  With my in-laws, Garrett, Thomas and Michelle cheering, I had a lot of motivation to finish hard.  With 500m to go, I secretly thought that someone had to be unleashing a killer kick that would knock me of the pedestal.  As if Thomas was reading my mind, he told me that I had at least 15 meters on the next girl.  My finish definitely wasn't pretty, but I finished in a solid time, a PR of 4:53.

After getting interviewed by the news, I gathered some of the other girls and we all cooled down together with Michelle and Thomas.  The awards took forever but afterwards I enjoyed a nice dinner at Whole Foods with G and his parents.  I was one happy lady.