One more down

Not a bad day, or a bad race- but not quite as good as I hoped. It was way too hot, even at 9AM, and that certainly didn't help. I had hoped to manage something very close to a flat 8-minute mile pace. I didn't really think I had any chance at the prize money, but basing the prizes on gun time instead of chip time was a little more motivation to start up front. I still got a little caught in the crowd behind some slower runners, but not nearly as badly as I had in a number of other races. The start went fairly well, and having Edwin C Moses Blvd to spread out across definitely helped ease the start-up crunch.
The first mile went well, and I managed the a reasonable pace- 8:39 or so. I had expected to go a little faster than that, but it was about what I could do just then. I was trying to hold back just a bit, and expected to pick up the pace each mile along the way. As it turned out, the best I could do was maintain about that pace. I kept playing games with the plan- where, exactly, would I start my "kick"? In the end, I couldn't really have done better. I worried if I was going to throw up most of the last quarter mile or so. Seems like I probably couldn't have done much more there, though I did manage a slight kick in the last 200m or so to the finish. My time put me in 21st place for my age division- out of 45 in my age bracket. On the other hand, to make top 5, I'd have to take 2.5 min/mile off my mile pace. Not sure that's doable- though that's about the pace I hit in the kick section.
So, end result- I'm pretty happy about this. I'd love to have had a little faster time, but I pulled off a time at approximately my personal 5K record, in the heat. It clearly wasn't my best day, and I still managed this time. Now, on to the marathon training... I'm behind, but I need to work on catching up.