Sunday, October 5, 2008

The Brooksie Way 5k

This morning I got up early to head over to Oakland University for the inaugural running of The Brooksie Way Half Marathon and 5k. As you might have guessed, I was doing the 5k and not the half!

It was very cold again this morning - not even 40 degrees. David was there to support me because he is the best boyfriend in the world. We just sort of milled around a bit in the vicinity of the starting line. It was a little tough to identify exactly where the start was due to lack of signage. Note to organizers: Big signs saying "5k Start" and "Half Marathon Start" would be a good addition for next year!

After a bunch of announcements and two different renditions of the national anthem, we were finally ready to go. God bless all the walkers who do these 5ks, but common sense would dictate that unless you're a speed walker you should probably start at the back of the pack and also not walk 4-5 abreast. I started out really fast just so I could get free of the big cluster of people and then settle down into my comfortable pace.

The course definitely had a couple of tough spots for me. I'm used to running on a trail that's quite flat, so there was one hill on this course that seemed endless and was very challenging for me. I had to walk for a minute to get myself up the hill because my legs just weren't cooperating after yesterday's seven-mile run.

I noticed along the way that the mile markers were way different than the mileage shown on my Garmin. So as I got to the finish line, I noted that the Garmin said the distance was only 2.83 miles. I'm sure the Garmin could be off by a little, but there is no way this race was anywhere close to a full 3.1 miles. That was very disappointing. I don't have my official time yet, but I could see from the timer at the finish line that my time will be way lower than it should be just due to the short course.

If I projected my average pace to a full 3.1 miles, then my time would have been 2 1/2 minutes less than the first 5k I did. I feel good about that, but it stinks that my official time is going to be way lower and it just doesn't mean anything.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cathy,
How can they organize a race and not get the distance right?? My Garmin says they shorted the course by.26 miles!! I checked on Google maps and came up with the same .26 mile shortage or 2.84 miles total distance.Very disappointed.
Larry

Cathy said...

Larry, glad I'm not the only one who noticed the ridiculous distance shortage. I just feel bad for all the runners who didn't have a Garmin and don't realize the course was short. They probably think they set an amazing PR today and they'll be competing against that PR for ages to try to beat it.

I agree, very disappointing.