Brian Kraft Memorial 5k - May 25, 2015

The Brian Kraft Memorial 5k is a highly popular and competitive race around Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis and is always held on Memorial Day.  This is the first time I’ve run this race, but I’m very familiar with the race because it draws well known, accomplished runners on both the men’s and lady’s side.  

It was 61 degrees and cloudy at race time.  Overnight rains gave way to a light mist which ended about an hour before the race.  The parkway surrounding the lake was wet in spots, but no puddles, or precipitation to deal with during the race.  Winds were a non-factor as well, so conditions were good for a fast race.  The parkway around Lake Nokomis is flat, smooth and in great shape.  It’s been almost 6 years since I ran my best 5k time (19:38), but I felt good about the possibility of challenging that time today, based on how training has gone so far this spring. 

As the race began I made sure I didn’t make the mistake I made last race, where I became bottled up in runner traffic at the start and unable to immediately transition to my race pace.  With the fast competition, this wasn’t much of an issue, as the entire field took off and never looked back.  There were no gaps that developed between runners.  There were other runners always right there battling you for position.  This helped me tremendously.  Sometimes when gaps form between runners, you subconsciously relax your pace for a brief moment which can cost you valuable seconds. 

The picture above was around the half mile mark early in the race.  I ran the first mile in 6:10, but fatigue was setting in much quicker than the longer, slower paced races.  At the same time I kept telling myself this will be over quickly, keep fighting through the pain.  I clocked a 6:10 second mile as well.  At that point I knew I had a good time going and a great shot at beating my 6 year old 5k record.  But I knew I had to maintain my pace as fatigue was quickly wrapping it’s arms around me and squeezing tight.  The one thing that continued to help was the competition around me. 10 runners passed me during the race, but I passed 60 other runners from start to finish.  So I was steadily improving my position as the race progressed.  This helped me stay mentally positive with each runner I passed.

With 1 mile to go I saw Kirt Goetzke about 10 yards in front of me.  Kirt is 4 years younger than me and well known among the local road scene because Kirt virtually runs every race in town, every weekend and runs them well.  I’ve never beaten him in a road race of any distance to this point and that covers a lot of races.  Kirt passed me about a half mile into the race as he always does and I assumed that would be the last I would see of him.  But with one mile to go I now had new motivation to fuel my finish.  With about ¾ of a mile to go, I pulled even with him and then passed him.  Now I was running scared, hoping I wouldn’t see his back again until I crossed the finish line. The last half mile clicked by very slowly, but eventually the finish line was within sight and Kirt was still behind me.

I ran a 6:00 flat 3^rd mile and finished the 3.1 mile distance with a time of 19:04, shattering my best 5k time of 6 years ago by a full 34 seconds.  Kirt finished 4 seconds behind me.  This may be the only time I ever beat him in a race, but at least I can say I did it once.  Overall I finished 174 among 465 finishers and 13 of 55 in my 10 year age group.  Although nobody older than me finished ahead of me.  All these young 50 year olds beating me now, but seriously, this was one of the strongest race fields I've competed against and overall times were fantastic.  In fact looking at race results from today, 213 of the 465 finishers ran under 20 minutes.  That’s 46% of the field!  That's crazy good.  But it’s also competitive fields like this that bring out the best in most runners and it brought out the best in me today. My race results reflect my gun time 19:10 and chip time (from start line to finish line) of 19:04.  I also beat the "tougher" revised 2015 national standard time for this distance by about 30 seconds for my age.  Very happy and pleasantly surprised with how things turned out today.  

My next race is a one miler on the State Fairgrounds, the evening of July 8.  I'm not used to evening races after working all day and it will be 5 years since my last one mile race.  So interested to see how this one goes.  More speed training this month for the short race, while I also begin to ramp up my overall mileage for longer distance races in September/October.               

Race Results:
http://www.mtecresults.com/runner/show?rid=401&race=3131