I signed up for this race Friday night (Aug 28th) at the cafeteria within the Hershey High school. I had been waivering as to whether I wanted to run this local race. I need to be training for long distances of over ten miles for my September races, not three mile sprints. I remember running this race in 1997, my other year in which I took up running as an avocation. When I signed up I noticed the racers bibs were customized and the T-Shirts were of a very attractive design. I keep all my racing bib numbers as souvenirs of the races. I regard them as a sort of adult merit badges. It doesn't take much to persuade myself to run a 5K race.
I have to admit my confidence level was very low going into this race today. I did not wear my new orange Mizuno race flats because I was unsure if I was going to have a terrible race outing again.
I have to admit my confidence level was very low going into this race today. I did not wear my new orange Mizuno race flats because I was unsure if I was going to have a terrible race outing again.
The race was slated to begin at 9:00 AM. I arrived at the Hershey High school about 8:30 am. I was very surprised to see between 200 and 300 runners at this race. (Correction. There were officially 438 runners who finished this race.) It had a good mix of high school athletes and newbies running a 5K for the first time. Since I had picked up my racing tag the day before, I was ready to go upon arrival. I only had to find the starting area the morning of the race.
Because my confidence was low I began the race in far behind the starting line in the back of the pack. In retrospect, this was a mistake. Once the race started, the group I was in did not move. It seemed like we did not move for ten seconds, but it was probably on the order of four or five seconds.
Once we began moving I found myself engulfed in a hornet's nest of runners with little or no room to advance my pace without running zig-zag patterns down the course line. This persisted for nearly a half mile into the race.
All in all, this was a very fair course. Not totally flat, but no energy sucking ascending hills. The finish was unorthodox. You had to cut off a road, up a baseball field's left field line to a finish line near home plate. The last 100 yards was on a slight uphill on grass.
This race turned out to be a confidence booster. I ran my second fastest 5K time, finishing in 24 minutes and 16 seconds. While I did tire in the last two kilometers, I did not tire to the extent I had to resort to walking as I had previously in my last 1oK race.
I finished 189th out of 438 runners (43 % tile).
Because my confidence was low I began the race in far behind the starting line in the back of the pack. In retrospect, this was a mistake. Once the race started, the group I was in did not move. It seemed like we did not move for ten seconds, but it was probably on the order of four or five seconds.
Once we began moving I found myself engulfed in a hornet's nest of runners with little or no room to advance my pace without running zig-zag patterns down the course line. This persisted for nearly a half mile into the race.
All in all, this was a very fair course. Not totally flat, but no energy sucking ascending hills. The finish was unorthodox. You had to cut off a road, up a baseball field's left field line to a finish line near home plate. The last 100 yards was on a slight uphill on grass.
This race turned out to be a confidence booster. I ran my second fastest 5K time, finishing in 24 minutes and 16 seconds. While I did tire in the last two kilometers, I did not tire to the extent I had to resort to walking as I had previously in my last 1oK race.
I finished 189th out of 438 runners (43 % tile).
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