I walked over to the race with my wife and son as the start was about a mile away from our house. The temperature was in the low 40s and windy. I wore my split shorts, singlet, arm warmers, and a winter cap that I forgot to take off before the race started.
I finished my warm up and strides about 5 minutes before the scheduled start. The race started about 10 minutes late. At the time I had lined up at the start, I was right near the front, then a large number of people jumped in front of the start pads before the start (a large amount of them had no business starting in the front). Compounding the issue was that the race started on UPenn's campus on a walking path no mor than 15 feet wide so the start was very congested.
The gun went off and immediately, the person in front of me falls over. I barely dodged the individual and it took me 7 seconds to get to the start (gun time vs chip time was 7 seconds). I was concerned with the slow traffic in front so I spent way too much energy getting around them for the first .25 miles including times where I was running on the grass to get around people. When I looked down at my watch at .25 miles once I got around the traffic, I was running a 5:35 pace and was already breathing hard. Again, I went out too fast.
My splits were as follows:
5:56, 6:09, 6:17, 5:23 pace (final .19 miles). My watch read the course at 3.19 miles (6:05 total avg pace). I was totally spent after the run and my lungs still feel a little junky now 7 hours later.
This was a PR so I am happy about that, and if my Garmin was true, I am happy with the overall pace. The course was supposed to be USATF certified, so not sure why my watch was off. Probably some added distance with the weaving in and out at the beginning as well as in the middle section of the course as there was a portion of the course that was run twice. | 