Eastlake 5k

I won a race. There are no pictures, nor any other evidence to document this.

We all ran a race, in fact, though details are sparse. The girls' elementary school had a 5k/1mile race as a fundraiser. We won't be attending the school next year, but apparently will pay to run on the sidewalks in our neighborhood that are free to run on all other times of the year. (In fact, they were free to run on even while the race was going on.) The race was small, not all that well organized, not terribly competitive and had a few major flaws. Oh, and it was raining the whole time, too.

As this was put on by the elementary school and was a family event, they had a 5k and a 1 mile race. Unfortunately, they started the 5k, and then a few minutes later started the 1 mile, so the 1 mile was pretty well over by the time the 5k finished. This does shorten the overall timeline of the evening, but not without a significant drawback: if my wife and I are both running the 5k (which we were) but our children, ages 10 and 7, are both running the 1 mile (which they were), we are completely unable to provide any supervision or encouragement for them. Further, there were no details about the timing of the races provided beforehand, so it was impossible to know about this until minutes before the race. For a race for families, this wasn't terribly family friendly.

So, Julia and Ella both did the 1 mile race. I don't really know how it went, other than Julia ditched Ella and Ella wasn't happy about that. I'm not sure how long it took them either, as the event was essentially un-timed.

Now about the 5k. The course ran through the neighborhoods of Daybreak, starting and ending at the school, and passing by the temple and the lake. It stayed on sidewalks and asphalt paths. I have some questions about how close to 5,000 meters it really is, because it is very difficult to hit distance targets when you have a single start/finish line and nowhere in the course where you can make small adjustments in the length. Maybe the design of the sidewalks and paths in the neighborhood fortuitously line up to give you a perfect 5,000 meter race, but I suspect they just picked the streets that gave them the closest result they could find. My watch and Google both put the distance at 3.19 miles, though those measurement systems certainly have their limitations, too. One last note about the course: it starts with a 90° left hand turn. Not like a turn near the beginning, but the start line was literally perpendicular to the course at the start. There was a turn zero feet into the race. It is always apparent when people planning a race have no experience running races.

The actual race was essentially an individual time trial for me. There were some kids that were in front of me for the first 50 yards or so, and then a pair of teenager that I could hear behind me for most of the first mile. But from there on out, I was completely alone running in the rain. I finished mile 1 in 6:24. Mile 2 has the most up and down and is the part of a 5k where you question whether you went out way too fast. It took me 6:36. Somehow, my watch thinks that I spent 4 seconds of that mile not moving. I promise you that is inaccurate. Mile 3 had the water station (no thanks, it's 56 °F and raining), and I was with it enough to notice that they were running out of the red tape they had put on the ground to mark the route. The pieces of tape were getting smaller and smaller and then in the last mile they switched to black. (It should be pretty simple to calculate putting a piece x inches long every y meters, plus some more for corners and things. Or, start with how much tape you have and back calculate your tape usage. See, you need basic algebra skills even as the PTA putting on a 5k fun run!)

Despite running low on tape, the course was still sufficiently marked. One danger of being in the front of a very small race is getting lost, which was thankfully not a problem. Mile 3 came in at 6:31. (Again, I apparently took 3 seconds worth of breaks. My watch is a liar.) If you're doing the math at home, you'll see that this brings us very close to the finish of the race, and very close to 20 minutes of elapsed time. That magical 20 minute barrier comes out at 6:27/mile, and I've never broken it. I've never come all that close either, except for that time that I totally smashed it, but not in a 5k. Let me explain: This was my 9th 5k. I know, to the rest of you it probably seems like I've done a lot more than that, but I haven't. Seven of them are the Rex Lee Run, plus this one and a 5k put on by my stake in St. George. Seven of these races are from 2010 or earlier, when I was young but not a consistent runner, and two of them are this spring, so there was a seven and a half year gap between 5k races for me. My PR was in my very first race back in 2004 when I ran it in 20:41.6 (6:40/mi). And that one time that I totally smashed it? Thanksgiving 2015, when I ran a 4 mile race at a 19:16 5k pace (6:14/mi). But the whole point here is that I was in the ballpark for sub-20 5k, though I wasn't sure how close.

Not that close* as it turns out. I finished in 20:35.5 on my watch (6:38/mi). I'd give you the official time, but there is no official time. In fact, when I crossed the finish line, no one noticed. I won the race (second and third finished together several minutes later) and I am confident that I was the only person there who knew it. Apparently we don't run for the glory. At the very least, it was a PR by 6 seconds, and seconds are hard to come by when you only have 3.1 miles to make them up in. At the very most however . . . . did you notice that asterisk at the beginning of the paragraph? And 3 paragraphs ago where I mentioned the distance? Again, I don't have a precise way to measure the length of the course. I suppose I could get a tape measure and spend the afternoon looking like a weirdo. I am confident that the race was not officially measured or certified in any way. If we assume the course was 3.19 miles long, then my adjusted 5k time would be 20:00.6. (But if we use the Google distance of 3.1931 (because it is totally accurate to that many significant digits) then my adjusted 5k time would be 19:59.5!) Now, let me be clear, there's nothing official or precise about any of these distance measurements, or my time measurement. I'm not going to claim this as a sub-20 5k. But I think I'm close, and I think I was closer than 35 seconds off last night. I suppose I'll have to find a nice flat, straight 5k and try again, but I've got a Ragnar to run first.

p.s. Shannon set a PR by 3 seconds, if I'm remembering her time right.