Festival of Lights 5K Race Report

On Saturday night, I ran my first 5K down here in Jacksonville. I figured I'd do a full race report, on everything from the race conditions to my performance. I came into the race with a 5K PR of 29:02, and I desperately wanted to beat it.

Race "Idea" + Charity Rating: 10/10
First Place Sports (the local running store) puts on this race annually. The race benefits the Children's Miracle Network, and it really is a family event. In keeping with the holidays, this race is held at night in San Marco Square, where the streets are lined with luminaries. There is a 1 mile fun run, followed by the 5K. I've never done a night time 5K before, so the idea of lights was really exciting to me. Everyone who ran was given a pair of jingle bells to tie to their sneakers. I totally forgot to tie mine to my sneakers, but it really added to the holiday theme of the race.

Right before the start of the 1 mile fun run

Set up/Parking: 9/10
This race was fairly easy to find. I'm new to the area, and even I was able to locate the start/finish area without the help of a GPS. Since San Marco is pretty small, parking was a bit of a mess. Everyone parked on the local streets, but my only complaint was that there wasn't anyone directing traffic. Narrow streets became even tighter with people parking on one side and trying to get by on the other. The funny thing is, everyone was calm. I didn't see anyone blowing their horns or getting impatient. That was nice to see.

Crowd/Energy: 10/10
I wish I had gotten more pictures of my fellow racers. There were a lot of people in Santa costumes and funky socks on. I even saw a lot of people wearing Christmas lights that lit up while they were running. Checking out the outfits of other runners is one of my favorite parts of racing. The energy on the course was great also. Since the race went through local streets, a lot of people were on their lawns cheering on the runners. All four half marathons I ran in New York were along basically the same course, and I never saw as many people out cheering on the runners as I did during this race.

The crowd, about 15 minutes before the 5K started

Corrals: 7/10
My one real complaint. Since I'm not that fast, I lined up toward the front of the middle of the pack. I asked a few people around me what their pace was, and most of them said around 9:00 a mile. When the race started, we all walked to the starting line so our chips could measure us as starting the race. Then we were off. Sort of. I was dodging people who were walking, 4 across, and seemed completely oblivious to what was going on around them. I know this usually happens in races, but it took about a half mile to finally get around everyone. People were dropping things and stopping to pick them up. I was in a panic, because a half mile is a long time in a 5K to be shuffled around. From what I hear, it was better this year than it had ever been before. Maybe signs at the start, so you could line up by pace, would have helped more.

Race Tech: 5/10
By "tech" I mean the timers. I don't run with a watch, because I've always had clocks on the course to tell me how I'm doing pace wise. When we started running, the clock at the starting area had the time on it - not the elapsed time since the start. After panicking in the shuffle at the start, I was relieved to see the first mile marker. The time on it? 5:10...5:11....5:12. I kept rushing along, mostly because I had no idea how I was doing. When we hit mile 2, the mile marker read nothing. Now I was really freaking out. I timed out the music on my playlist to be a rough estimate of when I had to cross the finish line to break my PR, but I couldn't remember what song I should hit at what mile. The mile 3/finish line markers worked.

Finish Line: 9/10
A complete mash up of people. But there were thousands of us there, so I wouldn't expect anything else. The race organizers did a great job of clearing lanes for people to walk through, and I was out of the finish line chute within about a minute. I was frustrated because I thought I missed PRing because of the starting line chaos, so I left as soon as the race was over. I usually do this though, because I never know anyone at races. There were a bunch of booths set up, and the entire Square looked like a great place to hang out for the rest of the night.

So after all that, I came home frustrated that I might not have beat my PR. I spent about $25 on the race, and I was upset that it may have been for nothing. The results were up online VERY quickly, so kudos to the timing people for getting that done. My final time? 28:37. A 25 second PR!

Overall I would absolutely recommend this race to anyone in the area. The race organizers did an outstanding job putting everything together, and the money raised went to a great cause. And as for nighttime races...I think I might be hooked.