AHEF 5K Race Report

I ran in the Bill Gallagher Memorial 5K this morning. I finished 4th overall and 2nd in my age group. I was hoping for a little faster time than the 19:18 my watch recorded (they just kept track of placings, not times), but I'm content.

At the starting line, there were a bunch of kids; which this race if famous for. I knew they would all start out like gangbusters, so I hung back a little bit from the starting line to let them have their fun. Sure enough, when the race started, those kids took off like they were running a 50 yard dash -- not a 3.1 mile run.

As the youngsters started dropping like flies in the first quarter mile, I found myself having to weave in and out of them. They would pretty much stop completely and start walking when they gave up their little sprint and I could hear their parents yelling to them to get out of the way. But, kids will be kids.

When all of the little ones were out of the way, I looked ahead and saw a couple of rather serious looking runners about 20 yards ahead of me. Knowing they were the leaders, I decided I would try to maintain my current distance behind them and hopefully have enough gas in the tank to make a move at the end.

The route consisted of old park bike paths which were quite crumbly and cracked. I noted that this surface was harder to run on than smooth, predictable streets. Your feet land at somewhat odd angles, which is a little harder on the muscles. Part of the route also looped around a small lake twice, so I did have to pass quite a few slower folks whom I was lapping. They usually didn't hear me coming and were not moving out of the way, so a little bit more bobbing and weaving there.

Coming around to the final mile, I noticed I was gaining a little bit on the leaders. The 2nd and 3rd place guys were only about 10 yards ahead of me. Suddenly, I turned a corner and the wind was very strong in our faces. It took a lot out of me, I'm not going to lie. I had a side ache soon after that, and at about the time I was planning to try to kick it down and try to pass the guys in front of me, I suddenly thought I was definitely going to throw up. So, I just held on as best I could and was very relieved to cross the finish line.

I was proud that I held back on the first mile, staying around 6:10 pace (in the past, I've gone much faster and crashed and burned in the middle of the race). Looking back, I'm not sure I would have done anything differently in that race. I ran the best I could with what I had that morning. I simply need to keep training and working at it. Not to mention, running a hard race like that is really the best training/workout you can get.