Brandon Feyler Memorial 5K (Waldoboro, ME)

Part of my motivation for this was borne of frustration in trying to find information on races.

See, I'm kind of obsessive when it comes to research. I want to know as much as possible in advance. When I trained for my first half marathon, I researched the route and built my training around that, making sure I ran training routes with bigger and longer hills than the one in the race. It helped that there are a lot of hills around here. I want to know what the course is going to look like, if there will be a big hill at the end, stuff like that.

It shouldn't be that hard to find such information. This isn't the internet, circa 1995. There's Google Maps and about a billion different blog platforms and websites one could use to post information about their event, and it'd even be free! Even a badly drawn map would be better than nothing. If someone is interested, they can re-create it on something like MapMyRun.

You know, like this:


That's the start and finish (give or take 100 feet in either direction) of the Brandon Feyler Memorial 5K at Medomak Valley High School in Waldoboro, Maine. That's Medomak Valley's primary entrance and exit. You can see the tennis courts and just north of the loop is the high school itself.

Anyway, the green box is the start line and the red box is the finish. Between the two the course turns left on Manktown Road for an up and back course that's more or less flat.


Sure, there's a small hill in the middle, but that's about the flattest 5K you could hope for in Waldoboro.

As for the race itself, it's a scholarship fundraiser in honor of Brandon Feyler, a local kid who died in a boating accident a couple of years ago. This is the second year. You can find the first year's results here.

The entry fee was $18, which includes a pretty basic cotton t-shirt in Medomak Valley colors (go Panthers!), but it's a scholarship fundraiser.

This was actually only my third 5K since I started running a year ago. I put up a 24:30 at the Pittsburgh Marathon 5K and a 25:03 at the slightly-longer-than-5K Waldoboro Day 5K (no, seriously, that's what the organizer said on the day). My goal, as normal, was to crack that 24:30, which I feel pretty good about, as that was posted the day before my first half-marathon, where I definitely wasn't going 100%. Of course, it's one thing to tell yourself you can PR. It's another thing to actually do it.

The weather is awful, as it has been for what seems like forever. This is one of those stretches where the rain and drizzle stops just long enough to mow the lawn, and that's if you're lucky. So…the weather is shitty. 60 degrees and sort of, kind of raining. Just miserable. But you know you won't have to worry about being too hot, so that's something.

At the start, I go out faster than I probably should, but I feel good and for some reason I'm in second place behind last year's winner. But he's way ahead of me almost immediately. At the first mile (6:40!!!), I'm still in second, but the leader is way ahead of me. Around then, I get passed by 2 people who haven't made my mistake of going out too fast. It's a pretty straight shot and before long, we're at the turnaround. Just before it, I get passed by a young couple running together. I start to fade in the second mile, probably from going out to fast and partially (I think) because I haven't done enough speedwork beyond 1 mile increments, so my legs and lungs are looking for the recovery phase.

I need to get better at my 5K.

The second mile is much too far of a drop. I do that in 7:39. But I'm still comfortably ahead of my PR pace.

The third mile just sucks. I hit the wall. My head wants to quit. My lungs want to quit. Where is the fucking high school already? This is fast enough, right?

After what seems like forever, I start to recognize the buildings around the school, and then there's the turn. I hit the 3 mile mark in 22:14 (mile 3 in 7:55) and suddenly I think maybe I can finish strong. Only, there isn't much left in the tank. I finish, but not nearly as strong as I'd like, in 23:08, finishing in 6th place. A pretty awesome improvement, to be sure, but I'm a little disappointed to get that close to breaking 23 minutes and just missing it.

Afterward there's water and a raffle and prizes to the top finishers. And, you know, more rain.