William F Foran Colon Cancer Prevention 5K - My experience

I arrived about an hour early for this race.  I do not go into City Island very often.  Not because it's not a fun place, it's more due to family budgetary constraints.  Anyhow, the morning was a warm one and the temperatures were rising.  This was billed as a large race and the number of cars in the parking lot outside of the baseball stadium reflected the large number of participants expected.

The registration / packet pick up was in an outdoor assembly room and was well organized.  On the way to pick up my race packet I had noticed the race bibs contained nothing but a number upon them.  For someone who collects and proudly displays their race bibs, the bib selected for this race was a disappointment. In fairness, the race employed RFID timing cards which contained holes to thread your shoelace through.  These cost of renting these cards probably warranted the cheaper race bib selection.

As I had suspected, the race was not run on roads but instead on the trail adjacent to the river.  I find it more fun to run on a road, but running on the trail had no impact on the speed of the race.

For the second consecutive race I did not feel especially energetic in the morning.  I didn't have a burning desire to blaze any trails.  At times I felt like I just wanted to go back to bed.

The race began on time at 8:30 AM  The beginning (and ending) of the race consisted of running upon the Walnut street bridge.  This bridge is closed to vehicular traffic and used as a walkway to City Island.  The surface of the bridge is made of steel or iron grating where you can see through the lattice of metal down into the Susquehanna river below.  Fortunately the bridge was not wet.

Aside of the 270 degree spiral loop hill and the 180 degree turnaround point the course was a fast one. I officially finished at 22:04 - my Garmin GPS watch recorded the course a little long at 3.15 miles.  (instead of 3.1.)
My time at the 3.1 mile mark was 21:58 - some eighteen seconds shy of my personal record.

Race	Mile 1	Mile 2	Mile 3	Last Tenth	Total
Lebanon VA	6:37	7:08	7:17	0:38	21:40
Hbg CC Prev	6:48	7:09	7:19	0:42	21:58

I would attribute about a quarter of the performance degradation to myself not performing as well and the remaining three quarters to the Harrisburg Colon Cancer Prevention 5K being a tougher course than the Lebanon VA course.

I have to admit I was initially slightly depressed finishing the race with a time over 22 minutes.  I had hoped for another personal record effort.  I can't be upset with my time.  It's the second best 5K time I have ever run.

After the race there was a lottery for door prizes and I won a colander filled with spaghetti sauce and noodles. I also had the opportunity to meet Jarrod Kulp an elite master's runner from Palmyra and talk to my old high school friend John Webber.  I admire John for taking up running this year and working hard to get better each week. It takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to begin and persevere at running. It's very easy to become disenfranchised and quit.