Run! Ballantyne 5k – Charlotte, NC (2016)

Six months after I beat my friend in a 5k, I was towing the line for a rematch. I was feeling pretty good going into this race – I was two weeks out from the Pittsburgh 5k where I was 2 seconds faster than I had run in December – I was ready! I hadn’t done the 5k version of this race in several years. The past few years I ran the 8k or the 10k when they had it, so the course was different from when I had run it in 2013. 



As soon as I started the race, I knew it was going to be a rough day. The first part of the race was slightly downhill, then up a fairly significant hill before flattening out and then back down the same hill. I was moving pretty well down the hill and I wasn’t trying to run too hard, but I was having trouble catching my breath.

  • Mile 1 – 8:22
  • Mile 2 – 8:25
  • Mile 3 – 8:55
Official time: 26:56
 
With the exception of my last lap, my splits were pretty close to my Pittsburgh 5k (8:31, 8:28, 8:19), but that last lap included walking under some sprinklers up part of the last hill. That was the point where I had completely given up on my race. I went into it with the same strategy as the December race – keep him in my sights and kick it up at the end. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to cash in on him going out too fast at the start – I caught up to him near the water stop around 1.5 miles in, but he was able to stay ahead of me and pull away through those last few uphills. He ended up beating me by 40 seconds which I expected – I gave up around the next-to-last turn. He was almost at the top of the hill by the time I rounded the corner and I knew I didn’t have it in me to catch him. 
 
Looking back, it wasn’t really that bad of a race. It was in the 60’s and sunny and I was coming off of 3 other races over the previous 2 weekends along with travel all over the east coast, so I shouldn’t have been too surprised that I was a little burnt out and, I was still able to get 5th in my age group. I did swear off any more 5k races when I finished, but I may amend that to no more 5k races when it’s more than 40 degrees outside! 

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