The last 5K I ran was the Pam Edwards Memorial Scholarship Run at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens back in July of 2008. I finished last in my age group with a (chip) time of 37:42. I recall that I had to do quite a bit of walking intermixed with the running.

In fact, I’ve run a handleful of 5Ks over the past three or four years and I’ve never been able to find and hold a pace that let me run an entire race from start to finish. For a few of those races, I was considerably lighter than I am now. And in one of those races, I even finished in the top three of my age group and won a gift card to a local running store!

Well, today I ran the inaugural All Access 5K at the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater. I finished today’s race with a (chip) time of 36:02 (my watch showed a time of around 35:40 from line to line). I am definitely pleased to see an improvement in my finishing time, but what I am thrilled about is the fact that I was able to run from start to finish with no walk breaks… aside for a few seconds at the midpoint water station. Admittedly, I was running at a very slow pace of 11:28 per mile, but I’m still happy with it.

As for the race itself, things were very well run before and after and I had a great time.The course was mostly flat with less than a mile worth of climbing… the mostly flat parts–out in the parking lots–were my favorite parts. Before and after the race, there was plenty of water, bagels and bananas available. After the race they brought out the good stuff in the form of free beer… or, 32 ounces of it, at least. I liked that part too.

Almost forgot! I did the whole 5K in my Vibram FiveFingers KSOs. I had a couple of people stop me to talk about them–one of whom was very interested–but, mostly people just stared… at a 275 pound dude running a race in what amounts to unpadded foot gloves. I just smiled at those folks. I had briefly toyed with the idea of going full barefoot, but after getting started I’m glad that I did not… too much gravel out in the parking lot… my feet are tougher these days, but not quite ready for gravel.

How about some pictures. These are from my iPhone, but they turned out better than most of my iPhone photos…

Here we are before the start, just chilling in the empty amphitheater.

Here we are after the race with the rewards of finishing.