On June 02, 2018 I raced at the J.R. Taylor Memorial 5k near Pittsburgh, PA. It was probably the most interesting race I’ve run in quite a while.
Normally in small races, I end up running around 4th-10th without a whole ton of passing in the top – and ends up being a relatively boring run. At this particular race, I had checked previous results and the competition was going to be at about my pace, so I figured as long as the pace felt good, I would stick with the lead pack.
Starting out we had a group of five runners take off. The race is slight downhill going out and slight uphill coming back. So since I was unfamiliar with the course, there was no reason for me to attempt to take a lead so I just stuck with the pace of the leaders. We went through mile 1 at 5:42, and as we went through mile 1.25 the lead pace had slowed just a bit and I was starting to feel optimistic about my ability to finish strong.
Unfortunately at about that point, a shirtless man I later learned was named Ben decided that this pace wasn’t fit for him, and he blew by the previous leader. So – the only logical thing to do was we had to speed up to keep pace with our new shirtless leader. Josh and I followed with Oscar in 4th place through the turnaround.
As soon as turnaround hit – I felt like “Ohhhh this really does feel a bit more uphill!” but maybe that was just a mental effect. Either way, everything started hurting pretty quick and despite still keeping pace all the way until mile 2+, I knew things were not going to work out. With a mile to go, Josh decided he was going to take off and Ben attempted to keep pace. I dropped back in a more distant third just trying to survive. At mile 2.75 I started to close the gap on 2nd place Ben, while Oscar simultaneously closed the gap on me (See featured photo). At mile 2.9 I stayed in third place by passing second and being passed by 4th at almost the same time – which is how we finished. On the flat course and humid weather I PRed in 00:18:21
