Coach Bubba 20k Race report

Did not have big expectations for this race. I originally wanted to try to break 2 hours, but I earlier in the week I decided that I wanted to do a hard track workout on Tuesday to help me with my goal of breaking 25 in a 5k in March so my legs were still a little sore and tired. My plan changed to start off the first 6 hilly miles at 10:30, then when I hit the flat part pick up the pace to 10, then for the last 5k, pick it up again to 9:45.
The morning started off cold and foggy, but no problems getting to the race, getting my chip and warming up. The race started and I was running with Cindy and Frank. At the first mile we were at 10:11 so a little faster than I wanted, so I told them I was going to slow a little and Frank decided to go on ahead on his own. The neighborhood part went by fairly quick as I had good company to run with and the hills kept it interesting. kept trying to slow it down, but we were still moving fairly fast, so I had no problem taking walk breaks at the two water stops.
When we hit American Tobacco Trail at mile 6, 6.06 on my watch, we had averaged 10:06 / mile so I was very happy because I still felt good and like I hadn't really been pushing it. At the 10k mark we were at 63 minutes and it was time to pick up the pace. I felt really good and my ave pace started dropping. The ATT was a series of gradual declines followed by gradual climbs, so on the down hills I tried to increase my ave pace and on the ups just try to maintain. Cindy told me just to go on ahead and do whatever pace I wanted, so I thought she was just going to take it easy, but when I got to the turn around she was right behind me :-). After the turn around it was time to up the pace again. I began passing people left and right and it felt really good, so I would pick some one up ahead and try to catch them. Then after I passed them, pick the next victim. My ave pace had dropped to 9:46 by the time I got to the 15k mark in 1:33 so I knew I had a good brisk pace going, I figured I could at least do a 30 minute final 5k and get 2:03 time, but I also know I wasn't going to break 2 hours so I didn't push too hard, but just tried to keep the faster pace going and keep passing people. Got to the end in 2:01:43 so I did a 28 minute 5k which I really felt awesome about and know that the 2 hour would have been broken if I had been fresh :-)

stats according to my GPS...
Distance 12.53 miles
Time 2:01:43
Ave Pace 9:43
Ave HR 153
Max HR 166

1st 5k 32 minutes
2nd 5k 31 minutes
3rd 5k 30 minutes
4th 5k 28 minutes

negative splits rock!