Kansas City Corporate Challenge 5K - Run5k

I lined up between the 6:30 and 7:00 pace groups. It's mainly an out& back course north/south but the start goes south first, away from the finish line then turns left twice which gets us in the north direction. The race is on Ward Parkway which is separated by a median so the two left turns gets us going north.

With such a fast start it was touchy running those first two left turns with so many people side by side. Once we got northbound it was much easier, especially on a nice wide road. The road was still wet from rain the night before and I could hear peoples shoes squeak on the slick tar lines that filled the cracks in the road. I tried not to run on those areas as I didn't want to slip and fall.

I have done no speed work and have only been running 2-3 times a week so I had no idea how fast I could go. This was the fastest 5K course I had been on in a couple of years so this is the one to PR on. I needed to be at the turnaround by the 11:30 mark to PR and by 11:00 if I thought I could go sub 20. The first climb starts at about 3/4 mile into is about 3/4 of a mile long. The average grade is about 2.4% so it's not that steep but it is 3/4 of mile long. The good news is coming home that's down hill. After mile 1.5 there's some downhill then the turnaround then a little uphill until you get to that long section of downhill. So so last 1.1 miles has no hills whatsoever so this is the time to gun it.

I was just trying to hold a good pace up to the turnaround to where my thought was that I'd try and shift to another gear. I was starting to become gassed at the turnaround but remembered that a 5K is "supposed" to hurt per all that crap I heard on BT! So I sucked it up and began the hurting process. I ran down the hill as fast as I could and could finally see the finish line ahead but it was still 1/2 mile away!

The last 1.5 miles of this course was exactly the same course I ran a half marathon some 3 week ago. My last mile of that half was around 7:08 pace for which I felt I was flying pretty fast. I was running faster than that here, just didn't know by how much.

Per Strava I ended up with the following splits:

Mile 1: 6:29
Mile 2: 6:53
Mile 3: 6:13

Strava had my run at 3.2 miles but not sure how much walking that included after I crossed the finish line plus it took a few moments for me to stop the run. I'm pretty happy with the results given I haven't done any speedwork that goes below 6 minute mile pace. I think a few months back I did a little bit of treadmill work where I went down to 6:00 to 6:30 pace for 1/2 a mile at a time but once or twice over 5 months time doesn't account for speedwork in my mind.

I think I executed the race as best I could. If I had gone harder on the way out, I may not have had anything left for that last 1/2 mile.

Ran into my co-worked John who ran a 20:10. A good run but he didn't feel he was at his best. I agree, I think he ran faster than that last year on a much hillier course. Still a great time in my books. Waited around in the freezing cold for my other co-workers as I wanted for us to have a group picture. I think we had 11 runners that day, one more than last year. Walked over and got a few Race Rolls but opted out of the chocolate milk as I was too cold to hold something that had been on ice.


Two things, lack of running volume and lack of speed work. Probably lack of volume the most. 2-3 runs a week not enough to expect a sub 20 5K at the age of 46.


The Kansas City Corporate Challenge crew does a great job with their events. The KC Running Company is also a great help and provided excellent timing services, race results were online already when I checked in the early afternoon.