The Braves Country 5K, while a new distance, the event
itself has become a Father’s Day tradition of sorts. Starting and finishing inside of Turner Field
this is a nice event which presents a reasonable challenge and for some a nice
tune up race for the AJC Peachtree Road Race (PRR) on July 4th.
This year there was a new, yet welcome, twist to the
event. In year’s past this race was a 4
miler, twisting and turning in the neighborhoods near Turner Field. This year the event was scaled down to a 5K. In my opinion, this turned out to be a great
move by the folks with the Atlanta Track Club.
Any runner in the Atlanta area will tell you… heat, hills, and humidity
are just a part of the fabric of the Atlanta running community and I think
having 1 mile (technically .9 of a mile) less of hills to contend with was very
well received by the race participants.
Two months removed from my marathon, and with 3 weeks left until
PRR, I felt participating in this race would be a good benchmark to see how my
training was progressing. Overall, I’m
happy with the results, but I see where there are some areas which need
addressing. Time will tell if I will be
able to make the needed adjustments before the PRR.
My final results:
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Obviously, you can see I started out fast and my pace started to slow. I attribute this to focusing more
on marathon related workouts as my body is more conditioned to race at a “slower”
pace compared to 5K race pace. Either
way I’ll take it. If you’re in the
Atlanta area and can fit this into your schedule next year I highly recommend
it. Until then… Keep Running!!
Photo credit:
Jennie Coakley