BRIAN KRAFT 5K

As I mentioned last time, the little ‘5K’ at work got me excited to see what I could do on a certified course. In the Twin Cities, Memorial Day means the Brian Kraft Memorial 5K. I’ve written about this race numerous times. It’s just over one lap around Lake Nokomis and the lagoon, making it flat and fast. It’s also small (this year’s race only had 474 finishers), but nearly every fast runner in the state is there. I had a solid race this year, but I was still 158th place overall, 136th man out of 292, and in the 40-49 age group I was right in the middle, placing 32nd out of 65 runners.

More importantly, I was about 15 seconds faster than my work 5K. My splits still need a little work, as I ran 6:03, 6:12, 6:20, and :39 for a final time of 19:14. But while I slowed a little during each of the miles, I was moving up in the field throughout the entire race. Again, this is about 15 seconds per mile faster than I was racing 18 months ago, so things are looking up.

Now I have to decide what to do. The marathon is constantly tugging at me, but I honestly don’t know if I want to go down that route again. On the other hand, if I just run short stuff, there aren’t a whole lot of races that I’d run that wouldn’t fit in with marathon training. So I guess that means I’m leaning towards TCM.

Here are the complete results for the men and women.