Had a great run yesterday evening. There were 458 people entered into the 5K (525 if you count the people entered in the stroller derby. I'm not counting them). Out of those 458, I finished 35th. In overall men, 23rd out of 161. Then in my age group, men 35-39, there were 14 of us. I finished 1st!!! Won that by about 15 seconds. Amazing! That was one of the goals that I did have, but didn't think I'd reach that in only my third race, and a race that was a total cluster at the start. While this may have been only my third race, the start was a mess.
The 5k race was combined with the 10k. I didn't mind that as a lot of the 10k runners were quite quick and they followed the same route up until the 2 mile mark I think, so it wasn't a big deal. My issue was the people with the stollers or who were walking. There was no organization at the start. There were strollers and people who were either walking, or just very slow, towards the font. The start chute and much of the route was only about as wide as a lane of traffic. I understand, these events are open to all ability groups, and that this really is a family themed event, but come on. Yes, there were some people with strollers who finished ahead of me, but if they started up towards the front, they had almost a minute head start on my by the time I got to the start line. Several times I had to cut to the grass and sidewalk. You'd think this being the 4th year of the event they would know how to run it, but I guess when you add in the 5k races this year, that's going to create issues.
But, I was still happy with my results. it took me about half way through to separate myself from the slower groups, and get to people who were running my pace. The best part was at about the 2.5 mile mark, I found myself alone. There were people about 50 feet ahead and behind me. I had no clue how many I had passed, but no one, passed me except in the beginning when I was getting slowed up. My official time was 26:29 (I recorded 26:47, and that would make sense). My pace times were 8:16, 8:11, 8:12 and the final sprint to the finish was 7:41. I'm happy with the results. To add to the excitement, as I crossed the finish line, they called out my name. I can only assume that was for the age group category win. But that was totally cool!
If you're curious to see all the times, those can be found
here.
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| 1 of 5 bibs that had my name on it. I liked this number. I guess it was the lucky number for the day |
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| Me and my biggest supporter. It was a cold one, had to head inside after to try and warm up. |
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| 940 of us squeezed out way through this tiny chute. |
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These fine men and women of the Middleton Fire Department ran the 5k in full turn out gear. Shortly after this picture they were called out.
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