Today was another race, a 15K this time. The event had both a 5K and a 15K race.
The day started off pretty early. I wasn’t sure what time to try and get to the event. The 5K had a start time of 7:30am and the 15K a start time of 8:15am. When I looked at the parking map, they had the participants on the opposite end of Fair Park. Quite a walk away. It was also cold. I decided to try and get there for 6:30-6:45am. I figured the 5K would have the most participants and I didn’t want to end up getting there after them and having to park far.
It turns out that they opened up an additional parking lot right by the start and since I got there early enough, I was able to park there. I was about 25m from the start line and just about 50m from the finish line. It was great.
I got there early and it was cold so I hung out in my car and watched as the 5K folks arrived. The 5K race was huge. Looking at the 5K results afterwards showed 7,945 finishers. It took about 30 mins for them to get all the 5K runners over the start line. BTW, the 15K was no slough either. The final tally showed 4,329 finishers.
Once they were gone, I lined up in my coral and looked for the pacers. My coral had 10:00, 10:30, and 11:00 min/mile pacers. I hung around the 10:30 pacer. Once the race started I was a bit ahead but by the end of the first 2 miles, I was near that pacer. Unfortunately I then started to take walking breaks and eventually the 11:00 min pacer caught me and hung with her for a while. Based on my watch and my mile splits, the pacers were both a bit fast. Eventually I fell behind the 11:00 pacer and ended up just running my own race.
While the weather was cold at the start, but the end, it was rather warm. I almost wore my tights, but I’m glads I stuck to shorts. I wore two shirts, but I could have gotten away with a short-sleeved shirt at the end.
Like my last race, the half-marathon, this 15K course had quite a number of hills.
I ended up finishing the race in 1 hr 45 mins. Here are my results:
Overall, I enjoyed the race and I will definitely consider doing it again. The only downside is that for packet pickup, I had to pay for parking. I wish I didn’t especially since I was only there for 15 mins.