Bay Days 5 miler Race report

This past July 4th I ran in the Bay Days 5 miler.  I decided to do this race for 2 reasons.  The first was I had heard it was one of the flattest races around.  Second, I had never been to Bay Village and wanted to check it out.  The race was 5 miles in distance and was hosted by the Cleveland West Road Runners Club.  This was my 3rd CWRRC race i've done and they always host a great event.  My only complaint on the first 2 were the lack of a computer timing system.  They did have a timing system at this race and will at future races.

I made my way up too Bay Village the morning of the race and was impressed to see someone riding a S-Works Shiv.  For those of you not familiar with cycling.  S-Works is a high end division of race bike made by Specialized.  You don't see too many S-works around here apart from mine and fellow buddies Jeff and Kent.  I was also impressed by how nice the area was.  The start/finish line was at the highschool and it was nice to have access to an actual rest room before the race versus a port-o-pot.

I made my way over to the start and the race quickly began after the national anthem was played via a trumpet.  As the race began, I established a fairly easy pace.  I had been riding a lot and the legs weren't rested.  The race itself was a winding course through some pleasant neighborhoods.  I was surprised at the amount of support from the town folk.  There were lot of of people on the route cheering us all on.  Even a few people had sprinklers out for us to cool off if we wanted.  Yes, it was hot and a lot more humid than I had anticipated.  At the finish, we completed a lap on the highschool track and that was a nice finish.  As it gave all the people a good opportunity to see everyone finish.  I ended up with a time of 41:55.  Not too bad considering the amount of running and riding I had done the 3 days leading up to the race.  They weren't lying about how flat the course was either.  My garmin showed a total elevation gain of 26 feet!  Now that's flat.

Overall, this was another great event by the CWRRC.  I had a great time at this event and will do it again in the future.  I was also very impressed with the area and how well the supported us runners.

BEAL