Provo City 5K Race Reports

Yesterday, Jake and I headed down to Provo to run the Provo City "Chase the Mayor" 5K. We had great experiences at the Provo City Half Marathon last year, so we decided to run the 5K this year. Plus, we wanted to cheer on a bunch of our friends that were racing.

The 5K is a great course. It is a mostly downhill course, with one hill in the first mile. At about 4600ft, the course is probably a few seconds slower than a flat sea level course.

We both took first place - I ran 17:07 and Jake ran 15:01!

We especially got a kick out of the slogan for the race "Thou Shalt Run" - only in Utah County! :)

Andrea's Race Report -

I warmed up 2.5 miles and then ran 5-6 strides. I didn't feel great during the warm-up, but that doesn't usually mean anything in terms of how I will race.


The race started with about 15 kids that took off with Jake. That threw my pace off at first but I settled down quickly. The first mile had a hill, and I hit the mile split at 5:32. Nice gradual downhill for the rest of the race. I maintained a solid pace through mile 2 in 5:25. Mile 3 of a 5K is always hard, so I was just trying to hang in there and focus on turnover. Mile 3 was 5:30 and 0:41 for the last 0.1. Final total time of 17:07. I feel really good about this time. I'm on the right track for that sub-17!

Jake's Race Report -

Off the start a bunch of kids sprinted out FAST! One of them, who couldn't have been more than 4 feet tall, stayed with me for about 200 yards or so. It was pretty funny, although I kinda felt bad for him because his breathing sounded like his lungs were going to explode. Then I was solo the rest of the way. I came through 2 miles in ~9:38 (I didn't have my watch set to auto-split and there were no markers for the 5K), then the last mile was 4:51 or 4:52. Final time just a tad over 15 minutes. I'm happy with this effort as a step towards my goal to get a lot faster at shorter distance races before I run another marathon.


There are a lot of upsides to marathon training, but the downside is that you get really comfortable just running "comfortably hard" all the time. You don't spend a lot of time on the other side of the red line when you are running lots of miles, long tempos, etc. That was my problem today, I just felt comfortable at 4:50 pace and mentally I didn't want to push it any harder. The workouts I have planned for the next month are going to be geared towards "re-learning" how to make it hurt. Lots of work in the Mile to 5K race pace range.

The after race festivities were fun with lots of activity. Everyone was trading race stories and having a good time!

Only positive things to say about this race, except that there were no mile markers for the 5K. I heard from others that ran the half and full marathons that the mile markers were way off for those races. The overall distances were right on the mark, though. Other than that, it was very well-organized and a great event!