Race Recap: Brian's Run 5M

Brian's Run 5M
December 1, 2013

I've wanted to run this race for as long as I have been running.  It's been around for as long as I can remember (this was the 36th year running).  It is always the 1st Sunday of December, which usually is 1 week after Thanksgiving and too hard for me to come home.  This year however, it was the weekend of Thanksgiving!  I was so excited to participate (finally).

Brian's Run has a great history.  Brian’s Run began in 1978 as a one-time fund raising event to benefit Brian Bratcher, a West Chester Henderson High School football player who sustained a life-challenging spinal cord injury at the age of 15 during a scrimmage. Brian was paralyzed that year, and his friends, their parents and the community as a whole wanted to help.  They organized a race and hoped to raise $500. That first year, 2,000 runners participated and the effort raised $20,000 to help Brian with his expenses. After 1979, Brian felt he had benefited enough from the proceeds and asked to have others benefit from the annual event. The race for years has raised funds for disabled people from the community who need help with physical mobility, seeing and communication.

This year, the race was to benefit the One Fund and Boston, which really made me happy.  I rocked my Boston Strong blue and yellow sweaty band.  The official race shirt, was Boston themed as well (photo at the bottom).

The race starts and ends at the local high school and is a 5M loop through West Chester.  It started at 1pm, which allowed me to sleep in (yay) but did present some problems (I never run at that time).  It started promptly at 1 and off we went!  It was a challenging course with some climbs and down hills.

I wanted to run it as my tempo run (9:09), but I was feeling really strong.  I tried to hold back, but was having trouble, so them I decided to just go for it.  My first 2 miles were under 8, then they creeped up a little and I pushed through and brought it back down to a 7:35 for the last mile!

I won't lie, that last mile was more then a little painful.  I was really pushing it, but I was really pleased with my time.  This is the first time I have gotten under 40 minutes for a 5 miler.  Hopefully, with more speedwork, that pace won't be as tough!

Splits

Results
Official: 5.00 miles, 39:21, 7:52 pace
Garmin: 4.99 miles, 39:21, 7:53 pace

T-Shirt design