| I emigrated to the US
(Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to be precise) earlier this week with my
family. Yesterday whilst out and about we noticed that there was a
Charity 5k in the downtown area of the city on Saturday morning, so I
decided to give it a try as my first race here in NC. This race is organised by a local running shop and raises funds for a men's mission in the city and also for local runners who cannot afford their own trainers etc. There were only a couple of hundred runners in the 5k (was also a 5k walk and a 1m fun run), but was very well organised and the atmosphere, despite the fairly early start time of 8:30am, was excellent. It was quite different from races I'm used to in the UK - I can't remember the last time a Pastor gave a pre-race prayer, or where the local radio station blasted out Christian rock music to get everyone in the mood ? :-) Unusually for this time of year here, the weather was overcast with drizzle in the air, but still quite humid with temperatures in the mid-70's still. We set off at 8:30am precisely over a two-loop, quite undulating course around the downtown area. The eventual winner set off like a hare and came in around 16:17. After a bit of a slow start, I picked up some pace on the second loop and managed to come in 2nd out of 205 participants in 19:01. http://www.fleetfeetwinston-salem.com/mission5k So quite different from what I'm used to back in England, but very enjoyable nonetheless and I look forward to participating in more races over here in the coming weeks and months. Rob Jones.
|
