The 2011 Wellness Challenge 5km for the GCWCC

I ran this race last year and blew up pretty bad. I had been in really good shape at the time having run my current 5km PB of 20:33 only a month later. Last year's edition of this race was just poorly executed.

I haven't done a ton of running lately, with my Crossfit Experiment in full swing, and the Army run out of the way, I've been less than motivated. But thanks to the Army run and some lunch time runs, I felt that a sub 22:00 should be attainable.

Last year I arrived just in time to get my chip and start running. This year, I entered my department as a team and got the bibs/chips in advance, so I decided to run to the venue, about 3.5km from where I work. This was a great idea. I ran relatively easy and was there with about 10 minutes to spare. I kept moving and anxiously awaited the start which was very anti-climactic. No horn, no gun. All of the sudden people were running.

This is a charity event put on by Stats Can, and the majority of the runners aren't experienced, so naturally they hadn't seeded themselves very well, even worse than normal races. So the first km was dodging slower runners. The second km was dodging somewhat faster runners who had started out too fast. I focused on running the tangents and running hard.

I pushed hard in the last km, because I was doing time math and thought I could get close to 21:00, but I ran out of steam with less than 500m to go, and just held of for dear life until I crossed the finish line. It was rough with no water stations or water belt, but I had a bottle stashed near the finish and went straight to it after the race.

I finished in 21:22 (chip) 62nd overall, which, as I just figured out, is actually faster than any of the four 5km races in 4 weeks I did at the beginning of the summer. So I have to be happy with that. Sub 20 is coming. Next season, for sure!