5K, you ain’t so tough after all

Dear 5K,

Oh, you thought you were smart, didn’t you, Powell County Kiwanis Club 5K? You thought you could beat us down by including steep hills, steps and an Indiana Jones-style swinging bridge. When that failed, you thought rain would stop us.

You were wrong 5K.

I don’t know the Latin translation, but in English, it’s roughly: We came. We ran. We conquered. We iced our aching knees down.

But we won, 5K, which is more than I can say for you.

You see, 5K, you tried a mental game with me, making me doubt my ability to finish this race, as well as questioning my logical thinking by even entering it in the first place. I hadn’t trained. Honestly, I hadn’t even run in the last month at my doctor’s orders because of a foot.

You’re a sneaky one, 5K.

You thought of almost everything.

The key word being, of course, “almost.”

5K, you didn’t count on my hyper-competitiveness, which would cause me to want to run this event faster than my sister.

5K, you didn’t count on the family bond pulling together as almost everyone in my Powell County family took part, and those that didn’t contributed financially to this fundraiser.

5K, you didn’t count on the musical inspiration of Bruce Springsteen, whose Born to Run album might very well be the official soundtrack to races everywhere. The album featues a lot of talk about roads (“Thunder Road,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and “Backstreets”), and as I tried (and failed) to keep up with Powell County running legend Brenda Burton, the song “She’s the One” seemed a bit appropriate. The album’s title song speaks for itself, I suppose.

And where did that leave you, 5K? Lying along the side of the road, as runner after runner (including many from the Brooks/Hall clan) sped past you. I had three personal goals for the day: 1) finish the race; 2) run the whole time/no walking; 3) finish in under 32 minutes.

Check. Check. Check.

I finished, having run (and I’m using a loose definition here; anyone who witnessed it can attest it was definitely more of a jog than a run) the entire time, and I finished in 29:53. Surprisingly, this proved to be first in my age group, and although I’m not sure how many 30-35-year-olds took part, I know there were at least two, so I’m proud of my medal. (I’m also supposed to say my sister finished the race in a time of about 32 minutes. I’m not sure of her actual time because I had long since finished by the time she did).

And 5K, I know you thought you were going to beat my mom, especially has the rain’s intensity picked up, but you should never doubt the stubbornness of a Hall. She not only finished, her walking time was good enough to warrant a second-place finish in her age group, trailing only the aforementioned Brenda Burton, who has no real reason to worry – she beat Mom by 40 minutes.

So, 5K, you lost. You lost. You lost. You lost. We got the best of you.

I would do a victory dance, but I’m far too sore to move right now.

Sincerely,

Kevin