Waterloo EndurRace 5K - April 12, 2014 Race Report

After the long cold winter, it was great to see warm conditions for this local race.   Unlike most races, it started at 6pm up in Elimira, instead of the normal morning start.   This meant I had to watch what and when I ate my food on Saturday so that I didn't start the race with much in my stomach, which would not have gone well.

Once again, I was racing on the Health and Performance Open team, as well as the Parent/Child division with my 10 year old son Holden.

We got to the race site about 45 minutes before the start, so Holden and I did a bit of warming up prior to getting to the starting line.

With Holden at the start

My wife Deanna was at the start, so she got some video of the race start as well.

When the gun went off, it was crazy to see how many people sprint off like they're doing a 100m race.   After a few hundred meters, I was likely still in about 20th or so overall, but slowly but surely started passing these sprinters as they ran out of gas.

Mike Piazza, also from Health and Performance was doing a great job of sticking with me, as we went through the first kilometer in about 3:32 (even though I did hear him say yikes or something like that after we heard the time from the volunteer yelling them out).  

Luke and Mike moving through the field

By now, we were in the top ten and were still moving steadily past other runners.

Just before the 2nd kilometer marker, I made my move past another runner into 3rd overall in the race.  

Not long after that, I got a bit of a stitch in my side, which isn't surprising given the fact that I was running much faster than I normally do, except when doing intervals.   Luckily, it didn't last long.

From here on in, I had a nice young lady on a bicycle basically pace me around the course through until the finish.  

The final push to the finish line

 I held my 3rd place spot right to the end, and crossed the line in 18:12, which is a new PB for me at this race distance.   Holden also had a great race finishing in about 23 minutes, which was good enough for us to secure the Parent / Child team race also.   Here's a great shot of Holden finishing up his race.   Awesome form.  If only he trained!

Holden has great form sprinting to the line!

Holden and I winning the Parent / Child team event

Overall 5K Results

Parent Child Team Results

Garmin Race Data

Our Health and Performance team also won the Open division (only one team though), but I think anyone else would have been hard pressed to beat us.   Our top 5 runners were all under 20 minutes and our top 3 under 19.   We had 3 of the top 6 overall finishers!   Solid team effort for sure!

Next up is the second part of this race, the 8K run April 26th.   There are awards for the fastest combined time between the 5K and 8K.   I hope to have another decent run there.  

The next morning I am doing the Waterloo Half Marathon, so that should be interesting.