Karknocker 5k 2012

Saturday was the Karknocker 5k in East Rochester.  This is one of the many money races in the Rochester area, but unlike many of the others this one gives prizes 5 deep instead of just 3 so I was expecting a fairly deep field.  I met up with Ryan for our warmup and we did indeed notice some of the local burners like Mark Andrews, the Guarino twins and some guy from Syracuse who won the Medved 5k back in June.  There were also a number of guys I didnt’ recognize but who were warming up in Cortland and Geneseo apparel so I figured they would be pretty fast.  As this was a Rochester Runner of the year race I was hoping to score at least 10 points but with all the talent assembled at the line I was beginning to have doubts as to whether that would be possible.

Just before the start we ran into Kenny Goodfellow, the newest Roadkill recruit.  He is taking a break from marathon training and had been focusing on some shorter races.  He was hoping to get a sense of what kind of race shape he was in with this race.  We didn’t have time to run back to the car so he could get his RKR singlet, but he’ll be rocking it at the Bergen 5k championships for sure.

After a bit of trouble with the start (the woman couldn’t squeeze the trigger hard enough to shoot the gun) the race got underway.  After about 400 meters I found myself in 8th pace running next to Kenny with Ryan just behind me and a pack of runners just ahead of me.  Mark and Patrick (the guy from Syracuse) had broken away from the pack already and a loose group of us including the Guarino twins hit the mile mark around 5:10 pace.  During the second mile the pack broke up, with the twins pulling away and Kenny and I passed 2 other runners.  I was sure I had run a sub 5:20 second mile, but was way off.  I hit mile 2 in 10:37 with Kenny about 10 seconds ahead of me.  Kenny was in 5th place and pulling away from me.  I made what I felt was a strong push to catch him but he continued to open up the gap all the way to the finish.

I finished in 6th place with a time of 16:39, 17 seconds behind Kenny who tied his PR of 16:22 and won $100.  Ryan ran his first “non tempo pace” race of the year and finished in 22nd with a time of 17:40.  While I wasn’t thrilled with my time, I was happy to pick up 10 RROY points and I feel like I’m setup well for a good race at Bergen in 2 weeks.  Full Results Here