2019 Gasparilla 15k Race Report
The conditions were terrible for the time of year: 70-80 degrees, super humid, sunny, crosswinds were not crazy but were constant, and high dew point. That being said, the weather didn't seem to affect the lead runners in front of me too much (except for the 4th place guy), so my complaints are pretty empty because of that fact.
Start line: The race started off with me confident to break 50 minutes pretty handily. I also figured I'd have a shot at top three and win some money! Read on...
First mile: Welp, there goes that plan. I was 20th place or so and was distinctly into the third group of runners with the lead group comprising of eight guys going about 5:00/mile pace, so I figured I would just go for the PR and whatever happens happens! I crossed mile one right on target in 5:20, but was behind seemingly everyone.
Mile 2 and 3 went perfectly, and over the course of those miles I slid up to 9th place overall, with just that group of 8 in front of me.
Miles 4-6 saw me fall 12 seconds behind my pace, however I guess I wasn't the only one suffering already. Despite my slowing, I caught 8th, 7th, 6th, 5th, and put 20 seconds on them all. This was a very weird experience so deep into the race to see that kind of drop off from the "faster" group.
I was already 90 seconds behind first through fourth, but I knew 5th was guaranteed $$$ and who knows, maybe one of the top four aren't local... more on that later.
The second half I felt heavy and positive split by nearly a minute, but somehow managed to put 10 more seconds on the rest of the field behind me. I really do not know how. Either we all paced this race terribly, or the weather was beating everyone up today. Even my final mile was a clunker at 5:27.
In the end, I missed my goal by a minute, however this was all mitigated by the fact that apparently I managed the 2nd overall local runner, netting me $1,500! Realistically, I did not run a time fast enough to win money of that amount, so I truly am fortunate. Who says money doesn't solve problems? Have a bad day? Oh... here's 1500 dollars. Is your day a bit better? Oh, why yes it is! Thank you!
Hopefully that's how it plays out. I also now have an opportunity to win some more money tomorrow in the half marathon, so who knows?
Splits- 5:20, 5:20, 5:18, 5:28, 5:23, 5:23, 5:25, 7:25 (1.3 miles on lap, 5:37 pace), 5:27 (final mile) for 1st half- 24:51, 2nd half- 25:38 (+0:47 split)
Places- 1st- 47:12, 2nd 47:44, 3rd 47:58, 4th 48:04, 5th me 50:29, 6th 50:56, 7th 51:06
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