Summary

I ran the Gingerbread “5k”, unofficial time of 25:21 for 2.95 miles.  4^th female, 2^nd AG.

Background

This was the second year for this race. It was held in Dundalk, which is a unique area in east Baltimore county, just outside of Baltimore city.  If you watched season 2 of The Wire, chances are you saw some shots of the Dundalk area. It’s a very blue collar area and not exactly the hotbed for healthy activities. On the drive in, I saw at least 6 people in motorized scooters in the road chain smoking.  I guess motorized scooters follow bike rules and travel on the road with traffic? Not sure of that one.

Last night I stopped by to pick up my packet. That was a really good call as I got all the directional issues over with. I got there plenty early, had time to do 2 miles. During my warm up, I had 2 lost runners (in cars) stop me to ask where the race was. The Dundalk Youth Service Center (the beneficiary & host) has no signage, so very easy to miss. Plus, it is along a Main Street style strip with mostly bars, bail bonds, cash-for-gold, etc. It looks as seedy as it sounds.

The course was an out and back. At the start, the RD called it 5k-ish or about 3 miles. On the plus side, the course was well marked, there were police at each intersection and they had a cyclist leading the way.

Mile 1                   8:34

I had run the first part of the course for my warm up. In my directionally challenged state last night, I had also drove other parts of the course, so I knew what to expect.  Fortunately, this was a very small race, we started on a dead end street, maybe it was some sort of park, but there were concrete pillars across the road. In a large race, that would be entertaining to have to dodge those & runners; it was a non-issue here.  I knew the 1 and only hill was in the early part right after were turned out of the park. It wasn’t much of a hill, but it separated out the kids who started way too fast. At that point, I was 3^rd female, the first 2 had shot out ahead.  Not much to look at as far as scenery, there was sort of storage area of trailers to the left and the port was to the right.

Mile 2                   8:41

We turned onto Dundalk Ave, which is one of the main roads through town. One side of the road was shut down entirely for the race, which was really nice. Right after the turn was a flag pole, I noticed the flags were indicating that this whole section would be a headwind. Beautiful.  It was here that I got passed by another female. So I was sitting in 4^th. There was a lot of space between runners. The turnaround was odd. There were tables and cones across the entire road, so you just sort of turned around in front of them. After the turnaround, I was running pretty much even pace with a guy wearing a shirt from the recent Honeygo 5k. His watch chirped 2 miles, he commented 2 miles, after that, mine finally beeped, which made both of us laugh.

Mile 3(well 2-2.95)         8:32 pace

Coming back along Dundalk Ave felt easier with the tailwind. Once we got back into the neighborhood, I pulled away from the Honeygo 5k guy. I was trying to keep picking up the pace in small increments, not sure that was really happening.  It takes away a bit of your kick when you have to make sure you make the turn between concrete pillars.  I didn’t stop my watch right away, so I am curious to see what my official time is—maybe this will be a 2.95 mile 5k race PR (25:15).

Final thoughts

Meh. I was hoping for a faster time since this was as flat of a course as you can find in this area. I talked to Honeygo guy a bit after the race. He thought it seemed  way easier, I actually found the flatness a bit challenging.

I was disappointed to miss out on awards. The 3^rd place female looked young, the friend/boyfriend she was there with won the 20-29 AG. When she was not the winner of that AG, I knew it wasn’t gonna happen for me. Grrrr, I would have gotten a Starbucks gift card had I been born 19 days earlier.

Overall, it was a nice event. I felt bad for the RD last night. He was mentioning the low turnout and asking how I found out about the race. Granted the course was short, but they were up front about the fact that it was not certified & was close to 5k. Not sure if it is the time of year, lots of choices, no frills nature or what. It surprises me when flat courses draw such small crowds.

Baboon, I go for the smaller races. I find about 100-300 or so to be a good number. This one had 35. With that number, it is really spread out and I tend to be in a bit of a no-man's land pace wise--not at the front, but far ahead of the fun runners.

There  isn't a lack of runners in the area. The multiple turkey trots draw 2000 or so to each event. I think the draw is to the "popular" event management companies--if people are just going off their websites, they miss the smaller events. I use Running in the USA (and the various individual websites) to find races. I'd rather do the small races, I think the less popular event management companies do a better job.

Congrats on a good finish and splits. Not being certified will keep some runners away, but between turkey trots and jingle bell jogs, I suspect the market is saturated and a new race, especially if not timed and directed by one of the local race management companies and listed on their website, is not likely to draw many. Runners tend to go to races they've heard about from other runners. The location may also be an issue even though it means a flat course. When I read Dundalk, my immediate thought was port and industrial area, not what I'd want to run through even though scenery is not usually a consideration for me.

I ran a race one year in September that had 21 runners. There is no rhyme or reason to it, runners will race anywhere, if they know about it that is.

Did you think about continuing past the finish to get to three miles? I ran another race once that was 2.97 miles and yes, I did.

Nice job, nice even splits. You can only race the course they give you. My last 5k was the only one I've had come up short according to my Garmin, at 3.06. It was a PR and I am counting it anyway, so sue me.

Still trying to decide whether I prefer bigger or smaller races. I like the easy logistics of smaller races. Although I think you don't always know what you're getting in terms of course layout; also maybe more likely improperly measured, although I have no data to back that up so could be wrong. I like that with bigger ones, you know they will be chip timed & give AG awards. And I feel better about an AG placing in a larger field. But any congestion at the start can be a problem in a 5k, where every second counts. I ran a big 5k that took me a while to get to the start. They posted both chip time & gun time, but they were exactly the same. And it was 6 sec slower than my Garmin, so I am suspicious. Anyway I suppose I should start right at the front to avoid that risk. 

I use Running in the USA as well, along with a local site called Seattle Runs, so combined with all the email distributions I'm on, I am pretty sure I don't miss many. Proximity is still probably my #1 criterion for race selection.

I do small, medium and large events. There are pros and cons to each but for me, it usually comes down to course elevation.