Name of the race: Prospect Park Track Club Al Goldstein Speed Series #5
Where: Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY
Date: July 15, 2015
Time: 7:00 pm (official), 7:10 pm actual start time
Distance: 5K
Terrain: One loop around Prospect Park, one big hill at the beginning
Entry fee: $5 per race if you register before 10 am the day of, $10 at the race, and $25 for all 7 races
Swag: None!
Post-race Food: Water
Time: 24:06
Performance: Overall: 148/324;Gender 30/124; Age Group (35 – 39) 2/14
Weather: 79 degrees, 58% humidity
I’m desperately trying to catch up on my race reports. This is for the Prospect Park Track Club Summer Speed Series 5K that I did three weeks ago. Sadly it’s the last one I’ll do this summer. I missed last week’s and I won’t be back in time for next week’s. I really appreciated having the opportunities to do cheap 5Ks over the summer to use as training runs and to keep my running and racing skills sharp.
The weather was warm, but it was cooler than the weather was for the #4 race. I kinda wondered if Mouthbreather would be around again, but I didn’t hear see her. I was on my own.
Ben very kindly helped me in getting Garmin to end me a free replacement band for my Forerunner 10, so I was back to wearing a watch. For several weeks I had been running with a Garmin “stub.” I wish I had taken a picture. I ran holding only the Garmin face in my hand. As long as I didn’t grip it too tightly, the Garmin was able to pick up the satellite and track me. It worked, but it was a little annoying to run with. I was happy to have it back because I was curious what my mile splits would be like. I ran the previous race “naked” and have no idea of I ran evenly or did a negative, or more likely, a positive split.
Mile 1: 7:27
Way tooooooo fast. Especially considering that the first mile is the hardest mile because we run up a d*mn hill. If this had been flat ground, I would have been running even faster. Sigh, I will never learn to run the first mile slowly.
Mile 2: 7:46
This is more like it. This is my 5K pace. Now hang on, and keep this going for the next mile.
Mile 3: 8:02
Clearly I got tired and slowed waaaay down for the third mile because I started out too fast. Shakes head. When will I learn? (in my mind, I can hear Ben saying, “Never.”)
Mile .1: 6:59
Oooh, ooh, ooh! I see the finish line!!!!! I’ve been practicing having a kick, so I throw it into gear and burst into speed to finish fast.
Overall pace: 7:42
I’m very happy with my performance, even with the positive split. It’s even good enough for 2nd place in my age group. I picked up my age group award from the previous race and hang around for the award ceremony. I was really impressed with the efficiency of the award ceremony. Usually they tend to drag because the announcer waits for each person to walk up and when you have several age groups, it takes forever. This person quickly announced each winner and their time without waiting for them to come up. The winners still got “their time” because another person placed the medal around their neck and a photographer took a photo. This way only the people who cared (the winner, their friends and family) experienced their moment without dragging the award ceremony for the rest of us. I’ve been to too many races where the award ceremony took far too long and it was going on 2 hours AFTER the the 5K had started. I was grateful for how quickly and efficiently it went, but it was done in a manner where the runners still felt celebrated for their accomplishments.
Much thanks to PPTC and NYCRuns for hosting these summer speed series. I’m a little disappointed that I’ll miss the last one because these races are fun and a good way to see how I’m progressing. But there will be other races for me.
A Fast Paced Life 
Nice job on the AG placing! 5Ks are SO hard to run even splits in. It’s like you’re going so fast, it’s hard to really guage the pace and slow down or speed up as necessary.
That’s great that Garmin replaced your band – I think it’d be quite annoying to run with just the face of the watch. Even when I run with my water bottle in my hand on long run days, I find myself gripping it much tighter than I need to (I mean, it’s strapped to my hand!). I can only imagine how much energy I’d waste with a death grip on my watch during every run.
Thanks, Amber. I wasn’t sure if Garmin was going to replace the band because it was outside of warranty, but they were surprisingly happy to take care of it for me.