- As I said on Saturday, the course tomorrow is going to be pretty flat, with an uphill coming at the very end (maybe the final couple tenths of a mile, max) and the start is on a decline, which should help me out as well. Compare that to Baltimore next Saturday, which is essentially 1.6 miles uphill and then 1.6 miles downhill. Unsurprisingly, the last time I ran that course was the '07 Baltimore 5K and I missed a PR thanks to those hills. So, with the generally flat course and optimistic weather forecast (partly cloudy, little chance of rain, mid 50's at race time), this is a great opportunity to lower the bar a little bit.
- This is the first 5K I've run in over a year and my PR still dates from 2007 so why not try to extinguish that record? A two year old PR that isn't all that special to begin with needs to be erased.
- I've neglected racing in a 5K for over a year and have put up disappointing numbers each time. Since running in my first road race ever in July '07 (and setting a default PR), I've run just two 5Ks: the Kelly Shamrock 5K in March 2008 and the Cheetah Run 5K in Cincinnati in August 2008. The Shamrock race was not a good effort considering I had to dodge people the whole time and the time for the Cheetah 5K was unreliable at best. So, I need a solid, reliable 5K time and tomorrow should give me that opportunity.
- I feel confident enough in my body now that I've taken it slow and gradually ramped up my mileage over the past two months that I can handle running hard for 3 miles. I'm interested in taking the legs out for a hard spin tomorrow and seeing how I do during the race, how I feel after the race, and how I feel on Sunday.
So, those are my reasons for attacking the Freedom's Run tomorrow. I'm excited about it and am hoping the next four hours of work pass quickly. Once we get back from WV I'll post a race report with the results. If nothing else, I'm hoping for a cool race shirt!
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