New 5K PR! Kingwood Bridge Fest 5K Race Report

The official "clock" time will be 29:02 when they post the results; however, there was a 24.18-second difference on my stopwatch. And that proves out to be a 28:37.93 new 5K PR at the Lake Houston YMCA Bridge Fest 5K in Kingwood this morning!

Temperatures were once again great (just under 50 degrees) at close to a 9 a.m. start. This is basically a flat course with an out and back that goes over a bridge on West Lake Houston Parkway, which is just south of Kingwood Drive.

After having to dodge a couple of people, I got into a good stride and passed quite a few people. The first mile resulted in a time of 8:52.19. At the turnaround point, I was at 13:57.42. Once I got there, I needed a quick 44-step brisk walk and back off again.

I got to the mile 2 marker in 9:21.44 and an elapsed time of 18:13.63. I knew that I was feeling pretty strong and I blew off the water stop just past mile 2. However, because of the 9:06 pace, I needed another breather near the 2.3-mile mark (that was about 52 steps).

Mile 3 came in at 9:22.24 and I noticed that the "clock time" was 28:00 on my stopwatch meaning that I had a shot to crack 29 minutes. (I've already figured out that a 9:20 pace equates to 54 seconds for a tenth of a mile!)

However, the last .1 mile took me 1:02.06 and I finished in 28:37.93!

Last year, it was a PR race for me as I finished in 31:19 -- an almost 3-minute improvement on the same course!

I stayed for a little bit and ended up meeting the CFO of Kingwood Medical Center (which was the primary race sponsor). I also talked to the Jones kids (and their Mom) who have run the "Run The Woodlands 5K" series the last couple of race. Nicole, a sophomore at Westfield, ran just under 18 minutes and finished second overall. She beat three of Kingwood's cross country team members (who were just recently part of the Nike cross country nationals).

All in all a good day. I would have run the HARRA Wallow 6K cross country championship today had I not paid the entry fee for this race early; however, Houston Striders running coach Steve Shepard reported that the club did well in the following report:

"We had 21 Striders at the Wallow. Brett Riley (2nd), John Yoder (5th) and Mike Tognarelli swept their age bracket. Helen Grant (3rd) and Jackie Connelly (5th) were 1-2 in the masters. Yong Collins and Patti both placed in their age bracket, as did Barry Chambers in the 60-64.