Run to Remember 5k

We headed over to Fayetteville, WV, for Memorial Day weekend to spend some time with Leslie’s grandfather, and since there was a Memorial Day race in nearby Summersville, I decided to jump in and see what I could do. The race was well organized, and overall it was a good, fun event. However, you don’t run many flat races in West Virginia, and this course was no exception. The first half mile was a fairly steady climb, leading to a downhill mile thereafter (with one short, steep uphill thrown in to break things up), before it flattened out to the two-mile mark. From there it was rolling to the finish line, with more up than down overall, leading to what I would call a fairly challenging course. Certainly I’ve run much harder courses, but at the same time, this isn’t a place you would go with a PR in mind.

The race got underway with several high school runners sprinting to the front and me back in about sixth place. As we approached the end of the first half mile, I took the lead for the first time and started to push the pace downhill, which spread the race out and left it to me and one of the high school runners. Leading up to the mile he remained right off my shoulder, and in spite of a relatively tame opening split of 5:22, my legs were not feeling good.

Just past the mile, he took the lead and actually put several strides on me. I was running about as hard as I was willing to at that point, so I just settled in and basically started to run my own race. Somewhere around the midway point, I caught back up then took the lead again before the two mile mark, which I hit in 10:55 for a second mile split of 5:33. From there, I pulled away and took the overall win in 17:06, running the third mile in 5:37.

I was happy to get the win, but a bit disappointed with my time. The course certainly had something to do with it, but I just never felt comfortable and this was another in a long line of what I would call mediocre performances for me. For whatever reason, I just don’t seem to be able to run faster than 5:30’s for any extended period of time, and when your goal is to run at least mid-16’s, and hopefully faster, that just doesn’t cut it. At the same time, I do feel like I’ve taken some steps in the right direction recently, and it was also encouraging to find out the high schooler who I dueled it out with in this race had just run a 4:34 mile and 2:04 800 at the WV State Meet, so he was definitely a good runner.

Anyway, full results can be found here. You will notice in those results that there was also a kids fun run, and in tenth place in that run was one Kaitlyn Crowder. The race was actually 1k rather than 1600 meters as the results indicate, and participating was totally her idea. It was the highlight of my day, however, to accompany her in that race and I was proud of her as she ran almost the entire way. Most importantly she had fun, which should be what the sport is all about. Wish I could remember that!

Not sure when I’ll race again. So far this year I’ve only raced twice, and both were more or less to get a gauge of where I am fitness wise. Neither have gone bad, but at the same time, neither have been what I was looking for. It’s been almost a year ago now that I said I didn’t want to race any more unless I was at a certain level, and I’ve basically set that level at somewhere around a mid-16 minute 5k. I do feel like the effort on the course this past Monday was worth something in the 16:40’s on a flatter course, so maybe I’m getting close, but I’ve yet to actually do it. For now I’ll go back to training and hope I can knock out some workouts that tell me I’m getting where I want to be. There was a time when I was struggling to enjoy running at all because my performances were so far away from my goal. I’ve moved past that now and am actually enjoying my daily training. Racing is still a different story, though, so I’m very much going to play that by ear.

Pics from the race are below. The first is me coming to the finish line. The second is the start of the kids' race, and the third is me and Kaitlyn with our awards post-race.