USATF New England (and Northeast) masters track championships

I decided to pass on snowshoe racing this weekend when I saw that the USATF NE masters would have a 5,000.  It seems very rare to find an indoor track 5,000 and even more rare to find one for masters.  I decided I had to take advantage of this opportunity.  Oddly, even though I've run over 100 New England championships this would be my first on the indoor track.

I headed down to Providence and gave myself ample time.  I got there early and found a good spot for my gear.  Running the first event of the day made knowing when the start time would be a much easier task.  I like not having to worry and just do my "normal" warm-up.  Justin Soucy joined me on the track for a 3 mile warm-up.  After that I changed into racing flats and did another mile with strides.  I was feeling a bit tired and very nervous.  My hip has been bothering me for over a week and I was worried about how it would feel taking 25 laps around the 200 meter track.

Just before the start I chatted with Sean Livingston to see what he was aiming for.  I told him I was hoping to run 40 seconds per lap for as long as I could.  He noted "maybe we can work together".  About a dozen of us lined up and I headed out into the lead right away.  We were just a bit slow the first 200 but I kept the tempo steady, although I didn't feel great.  At 1200m Sean moved into the lead and the tempo increased a bit (my fastest 200 was from 1400-1600m).  I couldn't quite go with Sean but kept running in the 40 second range through 3,000 meters (10:02.8).  It was right around that point that the effort began to take it's toll and I slowed a bit.  I was able to keep it together crossing the line in second place in 16:52.  Sean won with a sub-16:30. 

I'm happy with the effort.  Going in I thought I could break 17 and my stretch goal was to break 16:50.  I'll take it for a January race!  On to the XC winter nationals in 2 weeks!!!

400m Splits:
1:21
2:40 - 79
4:00 - 80
5:19 - 79
6:39 - 80
8:00 - 81
9:22 - 82
10:43 - 81 (5:24)
12:06 - 83
13:28 - 82
14:51 - 83
16:13 - 82 (5:29.3)
16:52.2