KKJW's Blog: Alberding Amble 5K

As practice for the 5K I'm doing on June 1st, my training plan suggested I run a 5K race either this weekend or next weekend. Next weekend, I'll be swamped with music things. This weekend? Seemed perfect. I found this race via my community college faculty email and thought it would work well. Benefits a math scholarship fund, at a park I'd never been to on the other side of town (new place!), and was fairly cheap. Let's go!

The drive there surprised me and made me happy. I didn't realize I'd be driving by both the Air Force base, the Pima Air & Space Museum, as well as the Boneyard. I was like a kid at a toy store, completely in awe of all the awesome air specimens laid out on the tarmacs. I kept thinking "my girls would love this!" I'll have to bring them there sometime.

The race itself was very small. For the 5K, I think there were somewhere between 25-30 runners total. It was a great course through the park too, with hills, turns, pavement and desert, as well as awesome volunteers. I ran in fourth place the entire race (three guys ahead of me), so I finished fourth overall and the first female. YAY! I also finished in an astounding time of 24:57 for me. My PR previously was set in December 2011 at 26:04, and my goal for today had been between 26:00 and 26:59. Wow! My first mile was at 7:55, which is super fast compared to my aim (8:30), so I was able to ease up a little bit for mile 2 and 3. I did have to walk for a 30 second interval (those hills were awful at times), but I still had that time. Imagine if I had run the whole thing! I'm kicking myself now for that, lol. The people were friendly, it was fun, and it's definitely a race I'd consider doing again.

There was one thing that I've been thinking about all day and trying to decide what to do (or not to do) about it. As I said, there were three guys ahead of me the entire race, with me running in fourth. The course (see map below) had a loop that went north and another that went south. After I did the south loop, came back north, and started heading west (ultimately toward the finish line, see where it says "water station") at mile 2.5, there was suddenly one more male runner in front of me. There was a volunteer standing at the crossroads of the loops directing runners, but this guy obviously didn't follow the course and skipped almost an entire mile. He was a slower runner (11:00-12:00/mile pace), and he finished the race 5th overall behind me, 4th male overall. His finishing time was just under 26:00, which he could never have done at the pace he was running (more like a 35:00 finish). He cheated. I don't know if it was intentional, but it happened. However, it was a small race, he was the only one in his age division (male 60-69), and it doesn't hurt anyone. But the thing I keep coming back to is the fact that he sits on the board of directors for the local running association. A board member. He's supposed to be one of the people other novice runners look up to and respect! What would you do in this case? I didn't say anything to him while there, and I'm really unsure if I should email the race director and just mention casually that maybe next year more volunteers are needed to direct runners on the course so that people don't skip portions. I'm so conflicted - I know what he did was wrong, but I have no clue whether he did it for a better-looking time, or if he did it unknowingly. *sigh* Weighty thoughts.

Map of the race - start, run east, then run south around the circle, then head east toward the circled 1 (mile 1). Then I think you can follow it fairly easily. Mr. Cheater missed the entire section that has a 2 (mile 2) next to it.