Granara-Skerry 5K Run/Walk

The 8th annual Granara-Skerry 5K was run on Saturday, September 27th in Medford, MA.

It was rumored that 900 people were pre-registered and that another hundred or so signed up just before the race. This was the largest group of runners and walkers ever for this race.

The race is an out and back from the American Legion Hall on Winthrop Street in Medford. The turn around is on Main Street in Winchester.

I have run this race a few times before and it has always been a few hundred walkers and runners. I was skeptical that 900+ people were walking or running. When I made the turn and headed back I saw all of those people. There may have been 900 people participating.

Out of 400 finishers, I came in 29th and 3rd in my age group. My official time was 21:33 with a pace of 6:57. This is almost exactly what Garmin had, 21:32/6:59 with a distance of 3.09. I’d call that an accurate timing.

This won’t count as a PR because I ran the Beyond the Rainbow 5K in 21:11 official time and 21:14 Garmin. The problem is that Garmin has the distance at 2.92 miles, not 3.1 like it should be. In my mind this does not count as a PR.

Awards were given to the top three over all male and female finishers. I believe that awards were also given to age group winners. Finishers medals were not provided to any other runners.

Granara-Skerry Race Results

You can see how everyone did here. There were 50 runners in the 1-19 age brackets, and about half were 12 or younger. The oldest finisher was Robert Regan of Lynn who finished at a very respectable 29:03.

Goals

The Granara-Skerry Trust has a goal to raise $1,000,000 for Pancreatic Cancer research. Prior to this race they had raised $760,000. This race should get them over $800K. Very impressive. A lot of the money goes to MGH in Boston where important research is being conducted.

My personal goal was to run the best race I could, and I think I did. I had to save something for my 22 mile long run on Sunday. There were moments during the race when I questioned my pace. During the Sunday Long Run there were moments when I questioned running the 5K.

This is the second race in my #505Ksat50 challenge. The 22 miler on Sunday was hot and challenging. I think I like 5Ks more!

Run well my friends!

Andy