Great New Years Eve Race 5K

This was the 20th year of the Great New Year’s Eve 5K.  I can’t remember how many times I have competed in this race but it has to be somewhere between 12-15 times.   It is hard for me not to compete in this last race of the year because it is just down the street from my house and on my birthday.  It has become a tradition for me and part of my birthday celebration to run this race.  The weather was seasonably warm with temperatures near 50 degrees which is not typical of this race.  Rain was threatening but stopped just before the race started.  Usually it is extremely cold, windy, and down right miserable.   The warmer temperatures encouraged more runners to register and there was a substantial increase in this year’s race field.

As far as my race I wasn’t sure what to expect seeing as my training wasn’t what it should have been.  After my Thanksgiving race I took a little time off to let an angry calf calm down and then the weather outside leading up to the race didn’t cooperate a whole lot with my training schedule.  My plan was just to run by feel and not worry too much about pace.  The first mile I felt pretty good and was happy with the 7:04 mile pace, but I knew that pace wouldn’t last as that was the easiest part of the course.  At the half way turn around point I slowed down a little bit but was still running comfortably and feeling good.  I knew soon that would end though as most of the second half of the course is up hill.  As the elevation changed and the hills started to appear I found myself working much harder and slowing down.  I was pretty gassed when I got to the last large hill,  I did slow down even more but seeing most of the runners ahead of me walk up the hill I was motivated to push hard, keep running, and power up it.  I was happy to be at the top of the hill and was able to increase my pace a little for the last half mile to the finish.  I was able to beat last year’s time and finished in 23:23.  I was surprised when I looked at the results to find out that I had won my age group.  You show up, work hard, and sometimes good things happen.  You can’t control who shows up at a race.  You just get out there, run your race, and do your best.

Josh Ritchie, Mickey Rzymek, and everyone at Summit Athletic Runners Club once again did a great job organizing the race.  Runners received custom race bibs, and t-shirts.  The standard cotton t-shirts weren’t my favorite race swag as I prefer tech shirts.   Age group winners received choice of running socks from the prize table and I was a luck winner of a race registration for a future race in February.  It was great to see so many of my fellow Team ER members, neighbors, and running friends there competing, working the race, and cheering on the runners.