So the race.... Elliot and I had decided I should try to hold a pace that seemed almost-doable for this race. I chose 6:20 pace because it seemed really hard but MAYBE possible for me at this point in time.
I was lucky in that Eric decided he felt good on race day and wanted to pace me. This may sound odd, but I've never actually run a race where I looked at my watch and tried to hold a specific pace. I have always just run, often without a watch. So we started out at our desired pace while everyone and their brother went out at a sub-6 pace, which was fun because I knew later we would probably re-pass many of them.
At about the half way point I was in 4th (female) and actually got frustrated because my plan had been to run my consistent pace and focus on MY race, and now I was running into the small issue of actually racing and wanting to pass a girl to move into 3rd, but not get re-passed or have her come with me. Eric can of course chit chat and hold full conversations at my very-uncomfortable-I-can-barely-breathe pace, so as we caught her he told me we needed to pick it up when we passed her. I knew this, but wasn't exactly sure I had another gear. Thankfully I started to feel better as the race progressed and was able to pick up the pace a bit.
Around the 5.5 mile mark we joined back up with the 5k (which means we were weaving in and out of 5k walkers, baby strollers and children). It wasn't much of a problem on the main road, but at one point we were funneled onto a bike path and it became an obstacle course.
In the end I finished 3rd in 47:35. I averaged 6:25 for the race and was very happy. Next week I leave for Austria and the next race will be a 30k mountain trail race where we run over the highest mountain pass in Austria.