Ran Another Depot Park Parkrun 5K This Morning

Back on January 5th, after having signed up online, I ran in my first Depot Park Parkrun here in Gainesville.  The Parkrun is a network of non-profit races held...without entry fees...at various locations throughout the world: Florida now has three, in Gainesville, Clermont, and Pensacola.  My original intention last month was to make a regular weekly habit of running in it, interspersed with times that Melissa would go with me to walk together the 5K (3.1 miles) course that involves four laps on a very interesting winding and sloping trail around the park.  Last month I enjoyed the run, although near the end I had a short bout of hacking coughs...today was worse as I struggled with this for most of the run.  Although I was primarily running against my last month's time of 30:00, I did finish 13th out of 46 participating, also being the oldest male runner. My finishing time at 30:36 was a bit slower...here's a link to the race's results page: [results].  Still, even with my struggles and slowness it was a triumph of sorts as I had been suffering from some lower back pain recently that kept me from running and had reduced my walking to a hobble.  The weather at 7:30 race time was pleasant enough...about 57 degrees with 42% humidity.  But the wind was strong from the north and was a bit irritating when I faced it...

On a different note, although I wasn't planning to run the Five Points of Life half-marathon here in Gainesville this month as I have five times in years past, I had already mentioned that they had drastically changed their running course, which traditionally had run through the heart of Gainesville, going up and down the challenging hills of NW 16th Avenue, passing through downtown, and then through the University of Florida campus and even in and out of the football stadium...a great running experience!  Now, though, for whatever reason the course runs southwest of the city west of I-75, much of it up and down Archer Road.  The marathon course is ridiculous: I looks as if about 17.3 miles of the 26.2-mile distance involves running down Archer Road and back...sounds like a very boring course to me!  Will I run the Five Points half-marathon in the future?  I don't know, but this new course isn't helping me to decide in the positive...