Halloween Race Report

Halloween Day saw me run my first race this year.  Sad, I know, as my yearly goals called for at least a few 5K runs, with a goal of achieving my first 8-minute pace.

The Bowling Green Medical Center 5K/10K Classic is my inaugural race.  It is the first race I ran so long ago, when I started my journey to lose weight, so even though I missed it last year, it holds a special place for me.  So I was inclined to run it anyway, and when my brother called me up and asked if I wanted to run it together, I was all in.

To be fair, I haven’t been running as much this year as in recent years.  I’ve slowly migrated to a balanced, more free-flowing fitness workout.  I’d say its helped reduce risk of injuries, but it comes at the cost of race pace.

The morning of the race I was feeling a tad nauseous.  Nothing serious, but just a mild burning sensation that was a bit concerning.  I drank a little Sprite, with the intent to avoid letting it interfere with my morning.  Temperatures were on the cool side, in part due to heavy rain the night before, a light drizzle which persisted that morning.  When we left the house, it was about 42-degrees F.  There were 822 people there running the 5K, which was a pretty good turnout all things considered.

The course was unchanged from recent years, which essentially circles Western Kentucky University, finishing adjacent to the recently updated WKU football stadium.  WKU has a beautiful campus, and the run takes you through a portion of historic downtown Bowling Green.  Being later in the Fall this year than in prior years, coupled with the fact that there wer high winds the day before, made for most of the leaves to be blown off the trees, which was a bit messy, but pretty in its own way.

Checking my watch, we crossed the 1-mile mark at a 7:36 chip time, which I figured didn’t bode well.  I was fine at that point, but have only been running 2-days a week for about the last 6 months.  Weekly mileage has averaged around 8-miles total, so maintaining that pace was going to present a problem.  Nonetheless, I resolved to not worry about it.  My brother and I spend precious little enough time together as it is, so I set it aside and enjoyed just spending a little time with him.

Being Halloween had a few people in the spirit.  One runner was running dressed in a Darth Vader costume.  He got quite a few catcalls from the race supporters.

My brother and I crossed together, with a finished chip time of 26:01, finishing 14th/15th in our age group, 71st and 72nd overall.  That makes for a race pace of 8:24-mile, so I didn’t make my goal, yet going in, I was pretty certain that wouldn’t happen, so its O.K.

I’d like to say I’ll get in another race before year’s end, but life is really stretching that goal.  I’m pretty much booked out every weekend between now and New Year’s Day, either with work or family activities.

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