It was quite a weekend at the 2022 Flyin’ FAST 5k! We started this event during the pandemic when most of the races had went away. We were still training and needed a quality 5k for our half and full marathon build-ups. We needed a course that was flat and regulation distance in which to measure seasonal fitness of our athletes. Since the inception of this event two years ago we’ve used it numerous times for this purpose. For the most part this event has been a private race that was open by invitation only and kept to modest numbers. That being said, it has grown from thirty or forty registrants to this season’s seventy-two sign-ups. Next year we will bring this event to the masses and give all runners the opportunity for some of the amazing performances that we experienced on Saturday morning.

Emily Taft

“That was two 5k prs in a row for me! This past year has been the most focused I’ve ever been on my training. This summer particularly has been some of my best training yet, I’ve run my highest mileage ever (70-80 miles/week) usually including two workouts a week and another day dedicated to speed work. I’d say the speed work (usually 8x100m or a combo of 200m and 400m repeats) has been super helpful. That’s something that I haven’t done until this summer and it’s definitely helping me get faster!”

On Saturday we saw some very impressive results with almost half the field securing new 5k PR’s on this full 3.12 mile course with forty-ish feet of gain. This all with the weather being a bit warm in the mid-sixties and moderate humidity. Emily Taft led a women’s field with her second successive 5k PR at 18:06 and the top three ALL with new best’s from Erin Rasco (18:55) and Laura Skladzinski at 19:22. The men were led by Dan Lennon at 15:36, Tyler Morrissey (15:44) and Neel Chittur at 16:00. Worth noting is that these front men took a small wrong turn that cost them about five seconds and would have put Dan around 15:30 flat and a PR for Mr. Morrissey. On Friday evening before the race we realized that the town had begun a new road construction project that impacted our regular course. We made some adjustments and changed the course to an out and back on the original course. It changed the elevation a bit and required us to use a turnaround at 1.55 miles. We lost a little time finish time with these changes but the runners rose above these obstacles and tore it up.

It’s very rare to see a race that produces almost half of the field with new personal bests. This is especially true in warmer weather when temperatures are higher, humidity is elevated, and 60+ dew points. The race went off at 8:00am with a field of fifty-eight athletes of the seventy-one registered. Of those participants we saw a PR percentage of around 45%. Of the runners that we can verify there were roughly twenty-five NEW PR’s set in the full group of 58 runners. Kathy Viggiano secured her post cancer PR of 27:11 and Christine Carbonetti ran her fastest 5k in five years with her 22:54. Kay Williams got her new mark at 22:17 and Peter Teal continued to improve all the way down to 23:40.