Brian Kraft 5k

Monday, May 29, 2017:

I feel so good!  It can happen after a race like this - the endorphins kick in and I feel wonderful, even before I have a beer.

The Brian Kraft 5k is a longstanding, popular 5k that is part of Minnesota's Grand Prix of races and attracts the best of the best.  For me, that cuts two ways.  The negative: I finished 13th of 14 in my 70+ age group, ahead of just one 88-year-old guy.

The positives: (1) I accomplished my training objective;  (2) I've never done very well in this race, because of the stiff competition; (3) I ran this 5k in 31:54, a minute and 20 seconds faster than my next most recent 5k two weeks ago; (4) I did slow down a few times to chat with people, and once to take off my hearing aids (oops) before they got too sweaty; (5) Before and after the race I enjoyed chatting with people that I miss but haven't seen in years; and (6) During a couple of those conversations I learned quite a bit about outdoor track, in which I have a growing interest.

Most of my running has been distance running, which is not the same as track.  Starting at 1 mile, distances go up to the marathon and beyond.  Running mostly happens on roads or trails.  In contrast, outdoor track events start at 50 meters, then 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 3000,  5000, and 10,000 meters, These are Olympic events, all metric.  They happen on oval tracks, usually around a football field at a college or high school, and the meet usually includes field events such as the hurdles, relays, long jump, high jump, discus, hammer throw, and the like. I'm interested in the running events.

I don't know much about track running though, outdoor or indoor.  In 2008 I ran the 200m on an indoor track a few times - that's one lap on the inside lane.  I absolutely loved that run - almost a full sprint, with my best time at 34.6 seconds.  Back then.  I'd like to see how long it takes me now, and check out some other distances too.  I still like marathons, and every other distance, but this would be an interesting change and something of a challenge..