Al Goldstein Summer Speed Series #3 2021

Mother Nature got confused this week and thought Tuesday was Wednesday, because the weather on the former was perfectly AGSS-esque. The latter, however, was utterly perfect.

For me, anyway. I actually felt a little chilly when I wasn’t moving! This is ideal 5K weather, given that it was low humidity, something that hardly ever happens here in the summer. Ergo, I felt compelled to take advantage of it and finally get that official sub-20 again. No pressure.

Being the weirdo that I am, I was surrounded by the super shoes to which I don’t respond… wearing a pair I purchased back in 2012 for $85. There’s not much need to worry about the cushioning breaking down when there really isn’t any cushioning of which to speak, which is actually exactly what a racing flat is supposed to be, dammit! (Sorry. I’m getting a little frustrated with all this high stack ridiculousness, and it’s getting harder and harder to find shoes that don’t require tissues for nosebleeds and/or second mortgages.)

Anyway. The weather might have been perfect, but of course my stomach was not. This is hardly news. But I figured that if I ran a crappy race, at least I’d look good doing it: that’s why I wore white socks, which I never, ever do. (I’m sure nobody has noticed this, but I always wear Brooks nightlife quarter socks for races. I have a few pairs hoarded, but they don’t make them anymore, so I suppose I’ll have to branch out eventually.) But the white socks just matched so well! Ditto the red and white shorts, which I also don’t really wear for races, since compression shorts just feel faster to me… and I don’t constantly feel like they’re about to fall off.

Photo credit: Larry Sillen

I think I may have been a wee bit too conservative up the hill; it’s better to do that than be overly aggressive, I suppose, but still. I was a little distracted by the whole “I feel like my shorts are falling off” thing. My watch was also measuring the course short, so while I knew I was technically running faster than it was telling me, it would really suck to suddenly have that “extra” distance make an appearance at mile 2.99 and then end up running 20:00 flat or something. I’m becoming somewhat of an expert at that, after all. As a result, I probably didn’t push as hard in the last mile as I could have or should have, but once I saw the clock and realized that no matter what my watch said, I could actually run sub-20, I ran my little heart out.

Finally! It only took two years. (Unfair, since there were no races last year. It just sounds more dramatic to say it that way.)

Garmin recorded 3.09 miles in 19:52, 6:25/mi.

Officially, 3.1 miles in 19:50, 6:23/mi. 40/253 OA, 7/120 F, and 3/27 F35-39.

I am over the moon to have gotten that sub-20, because there are few things more irritating than repeatedly failing at something you know you can do. But I would be lying if I said it didn’t irk me a little that I missed an official PR by five seconds. (By “official PR,” I mean the one from 2019. I ran a bunch of sub-20s on the track during COVID, and ultimately I want to beat that “PR” too, but baby steps…) I can’t decide whether it’s more or less irritating that I absolutely could have scrounged up those five seconds on this day, because if the weather were less perfect, it might not have felt as possible.

I suppose that’s all a moot point, though, and all I can do is keep trying.

Oh, no.