Trail Running Blog

Max’s Ring of Fire 5K Race Recap

Not calling this a report since I don’t see it being that long. This was a local 5K that I decided to run a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t have any races planned for September, so it was a nice break between training. And the race was just a couple of miles away from my place, so I didn’t have to worry about traffic (or parking since I actually biked to the start). Talk about timing: my friend asked if we wanted to hang out Friday night so, since this was a no-pressure race, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I ended up getting only 3.5 hours of sleep, definitely not recommended. I wasn’t sure if I wasn’t even going to wake up in time, but did. The week of the race I actually thought that winning the race would be a possibility. I imagined going head to head down the final stretch with another runner and outkicked them in the end. I even told a coworker about the race and how I thought I might win it. I ended up running a decent ~19:12 and placed ~5^th overall, not bad for 3.5 hours of sleep. Like always, it was not paced very well: 6:08, 6:19, 6:27. I was in 2^nd for a while at the start, but got passed soon after. I would have felt 10x better if I ran the opposite splits (and may have had more energy at the end too). It’s just when I see people in front of me, I feel like I should be up there with them, even though I know that I will eventually catch up. It will definitely take more time to learn how to do it properly.