The Bank of the West 5K runs through the streets of Oakland and circles around Lake Merritt. A slower course than the Kaiser 5k including a small incline in the last mile of the race it proved to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. I had a good 7 week training session for this race building up to higher weekly mileage. I mostly dropped the strength training I had done for the Kaiser 5K.

Going into the race I was hoping to land near the 20:00 mark and although I missed that by quite a bit I nonetheless set a personal best. As with my Kaiser 5K I had a sluggish start despite some changes to my diet on the morning of and my pre-race warm up. I pushed too hard in the middle of the race which resulted in a laboured finish and little energy to catch any runners ahead of me on the final stretch.

I had three key takeaways from this race. First, I need to recommit to strength training as I picked up a minor ankle injury towards the end of training. Without the cross-training I think that I overworked my knees and ankles with running while not building up the strength of the surrounding muscles groups. Second, I have to make changes to my race day routine in order to feel more explosive off the start. Third, I need to run the race at a more consistent pace to prevent the difficulties I encountered at the finish.