Sun 1/18 - 65 minutes incl. 3k in 8:44.3

A vaguely unsatisfying effort that nonetheless was a positive experience in the grand scheme of things. Woke up late, snowing to beat the band. Following a white knuckle drive, made it to the facility to find they were running 15 minutes late anyways. Warmup was 20+ minutes including the 5 minute jog from Harvard square, the rest of it on the track. Right adductor still stuck, loosened up somewhat during the drills but not 100%. Got off the line well enough and found within the first 300 that 8:45 pace was feeling like what I thought 8:40 pace would. I knew at 600 (1:46) that it would be somewhat tactical and that I wasn't going to run 8:40 or faster. First km in 2:56, next kilo about the same. Mile (not 1600) in 4:43 and the pace felt depressingly hard. Perhaps by dint of all those progressed repeats in practice, the pace picked up a bit into the last kilo w/o my really trying to or thinking about it much. There were some tactics involved as well, no one seemed to want a piece of the lead the first 2k (certainly not me) and so a couple of pretenders took their shot at glory before being shed. This left six of us with 500 to go, at which point I ended up taking the lead to keep it honest more than anything else. I had no delusions of winning the thing. Tried to make it stick but my legs felt like they were going to fall off, very wobbly the last 300. Passed going into the bell by the winner as I expected, hung on to second until the last 100 when second went by, and then got nipped at the line by two more in the last 50 which was disappointing but I couldn't do a damn thing about it. I was trying to stay upright at that point. Last lap went in 32 or so, last 400 66-67. Negative splits, such as they were, came entirely from this final push. As it turns out there were four of us between 8:44 and 8:45. Not much faster than last year's effort but that was a late afternoon race unlike this year when it went off at 11 AM. Cooldown 20 minutes under the football stadium, the only bare pavement to be found, as well as a quick jog over to the square to pick up lunch. Right leg not that stiff afterwards, tomorrow will be another matter I'm sure.