New Year's Day 5k Phoenix, AZ

The New Years 5k at Papago Park is a fun small race. I wasn’t too surprised to see that bulk of the participants fell into one of two categories, lifelong runners and “this is the first run of my New Year’s Resolution” runners. There were a few full families, one was seven people. There was even some sort of club or something, I didn’t get close enough to tell, but they all had the same T-shirts on and where doing the Fun Run.
For a relatively small race (about 350 including the Fun Run) there was an impressive group in the front of the race. I finished something like 36th male at less than 23 minutes. I briefly saw the unofficial results and the leaders where in the 17 minute range.
I’ve run this course before, it’s not gorgeous, but it’s also not bad. You start on one of the access roads inside the parking area of the Phoenix Zoo. You make two very quick turns at the beginning so it’s probably a good thing this is a small race or someone would get run over. You then jump off the road and onto a jogging path that runs along a canal. You basically run the entire race on this path. Towards the end there is an interesting pedestrian tunnel you go through to get under a road. The last time I ran this my pace was much slower and I recall actually looking around, you mostly see the walls of people’s backyards and the really giant steel towers that High Voltage wires run on. Visually, not much, but running next to the canal on the hard packed dirt path and/or the jogging trail (depending on if you’re coming or going) is a nice change of pace for me.
The T-shirt is white with two print colors and is actually one I’ll wear again. It has become trendy to give out the Dryfit style shirts, but I don’t like wearing those for anything other than working out. It’s nice to get a cotton T once in a while.
Over all, this race was worth the money, it was low cost but seemed well organized. The course was appropriately marked. The walkers were informed to get to the back and also which side to walk on so that they didn’t interfere with the runners. There was only water at the finish line area, but I believe there were snacks in the Ramada that you registered at, I didn’t look. I normally stay after races to see the awards whether I’m getting one or not, but it’s college bowl season and I’m a fan of that sport too!
As a bonus, for the first time in a LONG time; IF I were a woman I would have finished with an overall award!  However, since I’m not, nor do I want to be, I finished 5th of 14 in my male age category only 33 seconds out of the awards, nice job guys!