2023 Great New Year's Eve 5K Review

I have a love hate relationship with the annual Great New Year’s Eve 5K in Stow, Ohio.  I love to finish off the year and celebrate my birthday on New Year’s Eve with one last race, but I also must say I never look forward to the challenging course of this race.  Because the race is held so close to my house and on my birthday I do return every year to race.  Typically the weather borders on cold and miserable to freezing and ridiculous.  This year however conditions were much milder and actually tolerable.  Thanks to some new charity partners and increased marketing there was a huge increase in attendance.  There were almost 400 runners and walkers registered with 360 crossing the finish line.  The course which starts behind the high school is out and back and features lots of hills.  This is not a course many are going to set a personal record while running.  Most years I am just thankful to survive the weather and hills.

The gun sounded and I was off to a fast start.  I managed a 6:50 first mile which had me feeling strong.  Then I hit the hills.  I took a conservative approach up the hills and tried to increase my pace on the flat and downhill sections of the course in an effort to reserve energy for the end of the race.  The last mile of the race has one last hill which is the largest on the course.  Once I got up that hill I began to increase my pace to try to have a strong finish.  My strategy seemed to work.  Usually after the big hill I am spent but this year I felt better and had a nice kick the last half mile through the finish.  I managed to beat my time from last year by 31 seconds finishing in 22:52.  I finished 37th overall and took 3rd place in my division.  Last year I finished 53rd overall and won my division.  Even though I didn’t win my division this year I was very happy with the faster time and I was happy to move up in the overall ranks.

The race was once again well organized by Summit Athletic Runners Club, Ritchie’s Sporting Goods, and North Coast Multi Sports.  I always want to mention the efforts of Mickey Rzmek and Josh Ritchie.  Without them most of the local races would never even happen.  All participants received long sleeve tri blend shirts and age group winners received running socks.  There was a nice selection of snacks after the race.  A huge thank you to all of the Team ER members that competed and volunteered at the race.  Special thank you to the Team ER members that had a mini birthday party for me after the race complete with cupcakes and other party favors!