Hot Chocolate 5K

When chocolate’s on offer, of course, I’ll run. And that’s how I registered for the Hot Chocolate 5K.

On the morning of January 13, the “Hot” referred to the weather since it was 60F early in the morning.

It was slow going to get to the race area due to traffic. About 18,000 people were taking part and traffic was completely stopped for miles.

After the race, we got some chocolate fondue with a banana and other dips. It was yummy.

Here’s a map of the route, along with elevation and my heart rate and speed graphs.

Hot Chocolate 5K [urldisplaymode=none;gpxspeedchart=show;gpxheartratechart=show]

This was my first race with a timing snafu. Initially, the results online showed my chip time as 36 minutes. I knew that was definitely wrong. My Wahoo Fitness iPhone app had clocked me at 32:59 and I had started that before my corral even started running and had stopped it a little after crossing the finish line. So I sent them a correction request. My time has now been changed to 33:33, which is still about a minute too long. But I am going to let that stand.

Based on the new time of 33min 33sec, I was ranked 2169th/9083 overall, 756th/1732 among men, and 95th/269 among men aged 40-44. (Yes, men were only 19% of the 5K participants.)

Now, I am waiting for my first 10K!

By Zack

Dad, gadget guy, bookworm, political animal, global nomad, cyclist, hiker, tennis player, photographer