Benson, North Carolina
November 5, 2022
I recently moved to North Carolina, and this was my first 5k run outside of my home state of Florida and only my second race of the entire year. Being a race to support veterans, it would have been great to wear a USA shirt but with all my excitement to run my first race in a while I forgot.
When I arrived at the small downtown area of Benson, most roads were blocked off for the race and I had a small panic attack thinking I might have arrived at the race a little later than I should’ve. After a couple of U-turns and asking the police officer what direction to take, I made it to a nice parking lot that was right next to the starting line.
I put my shoes on and walked up to go check in to receive my bib number, a nice long sleeve t-shirt and a goody bag. As I checked in, the volunteer asked for my last name and immediately started to write “VIKES” (actually spelled Veix) which I thought was great since my blog is called Vikesathon. All the volunteers were very efficient and no one waiting long to receive their items.
After taking time to tie my shoes, do some stretching and a nice little warm up on the side roads the race director called all 100+ runners to the starting line. The race started promptly at 9am and right when the clock struck 9am the race had begun.
I had pace of 9:30 as my goal and wanted to make sure I didn’t start out too quickly, which I tend to do in the beginning because I try to pass all the people walking or going too slow. The first half mile seemed to be uphill, and it didn’t end there. Being from Florida, the only hills you will find are near golf courses. Thankfully I have been running in my neighborhood and have gotten used to the inclines.
The first mile felt smooth as my pace was faster than expected. The second mile felt more difficult because the inclines caught up with me a little. By the third mile, all those inclines turned to declines and I felt great taking the momentum of going downhill.
My watch logged the course slightly longer at 3.2 miles and my finishing time of 29m 21s, which gave me an average pace of 9:18. I beat my goal pace by over 10 seconds, and I couldn’t have been happier. Overall, I thought the course, the volunteers and the festivities were top notch and I look forward to doing it again next year.