This race sprang up at the last second, and it sounded like fun, so I signed up. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who heard about it, as there were over 10,000 participants. Frankly, the sheer number of entrants flabbergasted me. It was easily the largest field for a 5k I'd even heard about. I started to worry the whole thing would devolve into a clustermess.

We had to park a fair distance away from the start, but it was still a better deal than the people riding in from Tacoma Community College on shuttle buses. I used the mile or so distance as a bit of a warm-up. However, since there wasn't going to be anyplace to leave clothes at the start line, I left my racing flats in the car and ran in my trainers.

I managed to elbow my way up to the fourth row for the start. (Given that the mob stretched out for half a mile behind me, it was quite a feat.) I didn't get crowded out and slowed down like I have at the Seattle Half Marathon. I cruised along at a good pace once we were underway, and I really wished I'd worn my flats—it felt like I had concrete blocks strapped to my feet.

The course started out uphill, but after a quarter-mile, it turned to downhill. Just after the mile-mark it started back uphill again. It was an out-and-back, so after the turn-around at halfway, it was downhill to the two-mile mark, followed by a long uphill slog and short quarter-mile downhill sprint to the finish. Recalling the elevation profile, I shouldn't be surprised that I really suffered on the third mile. I finished in 19:07, and if my flats are good for ten seconds per mile, that would have given me an 18:37, which is just about six-flat per mile. Of course, I could just as well laced up the flats, opened with 5:35 mile, gone lactic, and finished staggering up the final long uphill to cross the line in 21:03.

My splits:

Mile 1	5:49	5:49
Mile 2	6:10	11:59
Mile 3	6:30	18:30
Last .1	0:37	19:07

  ¶ 10:47 PM