I Ran a 5K in Old Town With Zero Training… How’d It Go?

Like Kevin Garnett said, "Anything is possible."

Last week, I asked the question, "How Much Do You Really Have to Train for a 5K in Maine?" I was wondering this because I found myself in that exact situation.

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On Wednesday afternoon, while reading about the Old Town Riverfest scheduled for the upcoming weekend and the festivities planned, I noticed an early Saturday morning 5K race listed. Impulsively, I signed up for it.

Usually, the only thing that's running is my hairline from my eyebrows.

Having signed up for the race fewer than three days before the event, I knew I couldn't truly "train" for it. To avoid soreness or injury on the actual day of the run, I chose not to run beforehand. 

I hadn't run long distances in years, and it became glaringly obvious on Saturday morning with the way I was huffing and puffing. I wasn’t running for speed, I was running for survival. 

As shown above, my last race was over eight years ago, so I relied on memories of my racing glory days to enhance this performance. I set three major goals: to conserve energy at the start, maintain a steady pace throughout and, most importantly, finish the race with a cartwheel.

That was the game plan, and I stuck to it, even nailing the cartwheel at the finish. Unfortunately, there's no footage of the cartwheel, much like Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game. It happened, but there's no record. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Scott and Cindy discussed the upcoming run on the Q106.5 morning show, emphasizing my goal of simply seeing if the race could be completed.

Always striving to present the best product possible, I recorded diary room-like confessionals during the race to provide genuine insight into how things were unfolding. Here’s an audio clip of meat the halfway point of the race.

Additionally, I have another clip recorded after conquering an extremely steep hill.

And finally, this is directly after the race.

In full transparency, my final time was 27 minutes and 20 seconds, averaging about 8 minutes and 47 seconds per mile. Honestly, I'm pleased with that. It exceeded my expectations. However, as mentioned earlier, time wasn’t the priority — it was achieving the initial goals set.

That being said, this will be the last time I register for a race with only two days' notice. My next race will be planned at least four or five days in advance.