March 29, 2025
March 29th found us in Bowling Green, Kentucky, for the Family Enrichment Center’s Run & Walk for Children, part of a multi-day, multi-race event put on by the Family Enrichment Center.
Founded in Bowling Green in 1977, the Family Enrichment Center works to empower families and prevent child abuse by providing education, social support, crisis intervention, and a safe environment for children and their families. The Run & Walk for Children is Family Enrichment Center’s longest-running fundraising event, celebrating its 29th anniversary in 2025. The event features a half marathon, 5K run, 5K fun walk, and a free Kids One Mile Glow Run. Proceeds from the event directly benefit the Family Enrichment Center’s child abuse prevention programs. The event also includes a pizza/pasta party and the Family First Health & Wellness Expo the night before the race. The Expo featured health and wellness vendors, family/child-centered organizations from the community, activities, a DJ, door prizes and more.
Our Saturday morning 5K ran through the pleasant 65-degree air of Ephram White Park on the outskirts of Bowling Green. The course was roughly a counterclockwise loop along a gravel path – about the width and texture of a golf cart path – encircling the park, with a handful of lefts and rights and zig-zags along the way. Unfolding on a relatively flat patch of land in a state not known for being flat, the course had some inclines and declines, but no real hills. Nothing that made us say “ouch” on the up or “yippee” on the down. The elevation changes were more akin to the gentle ups and downs of undulating lake water than the distinct crests and troughs of ocean waves.
The 5K had the fastest runners we’ve seen in a number of races, with the top two runners averaging below 5:30 per mile. The overall winner came in at 16:39, and the 2nd place finisher came in at 17:00. There was a drop-off after that, with a full two and a half minutes separating the 2nd and 3rd place finishers. The top female finisher came in at 22:19 – a 7:11 pace – and finished 13th overall.
The half marathon had some decent runners as well. The top three finishers, which included the top female finisher, all averaged between 6:23 and 6:28 per mile. Their paces would have landed them in 4th, 5th, and 6th place in the 5K had they run the shorter race at those same clips.
Though running shorter and slower than those three half marathoners, Ryan and Julie both managed to medal in their 5K age groups. Ryan finished 2nd of 9 in his age group, 13th of 73 males, and 14th of 158 overall. Julie had another gold medal performance, finishing 1st of 6 in her age group, 16th of 85 females, and 55th of 158 overall.
Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds
Our Kentucky race was on the harder side, to varying degrees, for both of us and not for any reason that was particularly obvious. It certainly wasn’t the course. The course was not flat, but any hills were modest and short, landing the course somewhere between gently rolling and flat. Maybe it was the Kentucky humidity. Humidity is one of those quiet killers to an easy race feeling. But, it wasn’t terribly oppressive. Maybe it was just the fact that, after 10 months of being on the road, we were on our 48th race in our 47th state. And maybe it was just cause. In running, sometimes things are just hard and that’s all there is to it. It was a lovely course and a lovely day for a race, but we both were looking for that finish line long before we had it in our sights.
Ryan started out feeling a little heavier than the last few races. He started out having selecting 7:30 as his time not to go below. Once the race actually started, he was a little slower than that. He loosened up a bit in the second mile, dropping down to a 7:20. By the last half of the third mile, he was ready for it to be done. He was going a a decent clip, about a 6:58, but he’d run that and faster many times before. This race was different. For whatever reason, it was hurting a lot more and he was really ready for that finish line to come. But, despite that, it was a decent race for him.
For Julie, well, for Julie, this one, to put it lightly, was rough – really rough.
Despite plenty of decent sleep in the week leading up to the race, Julie had been suspicious how this one would go, as she was waking up every day feeling heavy and tired, no matter how well she slept. She had been wondering if it was time for another medication adjustment for her thyroid. Something just felt off. So, she started the race curious to see if the movement would burn off some of that heaviness or if it was a sign of things to come. Julie’s plan was to run slow, like a 9:45 for the first mile just to see what kind of condition she was in. Then she would decide how to run the rest of the race from there.
When the race started, in the first quarter of a mile, Julie found herself having to work to slow herself down from what felt like an easy 8:45 pace. Having learned many lessons over the course of this trip, Julie forced herself to slow down to a 9:15. It felt so easy to run that pace, Julie figured she would likely be running the first mile at 9:45 for no necessary reason and then would easily speed up in the latter half of the race. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
About a third of a mile in, something inside of her just switched. She had managed to slow down to a nice and easy 9:45 pace…but her body was not responding to it like it was easy at all. It felt hard. No matter how much she slowed down, it still felt hard. She looked down and, only half a mile into the race, her heart rate was at 174. This was strange. Even back in her high heart rate days before getting her medicine adjusted, this was very early to see heart rates that high, and very strange to have them at sea level and at such an easy pace. Before the end of mile 1, Julie’s heart rate was in the 180’s. There are times when Julie is sprinting that her heart rate doesn’t get up into the 180’s. Julie did not feel right. Soon the, “start the race out at 9:45s” became, just try hard to keep each mile around 9:45’s. Julie’s heart rate hovered between the high 170’s and low 180’s for the entire rest of the race. This has never happened before, not at what should have been an easy jog.
Somewhere in mile 2, the true reality of what her body was saying started to really sink in. Julie felt a wave of acceptance wash over her. I am a 45 year old female with a thyroid condition and I’ve been traveling the country for 10 months and am running my 48th race in that time – this goose is cooked. Whether the cookedness of her goose was just for this race, or the reality for the rest of the races, Julie was not sure, but she was sure that there was a reality setting in that required some degree of surrender.
Interestingly, though Julie was in rough shape for the whole race on this one level, with a heart rate that wouldn’t quit going up, including getting to 188 on the finish when Julie only sped up to the low nines, she found that, despite the struggles, there was never a moment where she felt she would have to stop, as had happened in so many of the other tough races, where she ran out of juice on mile 3. That fitness strength that she had felt in the last race was still there.
But that changes nothing. Julie has officially surrendered that, until the trip is done and there is time for some real recovery – which means taking multiple weeks, maybe even months off, there may be a bit of struggle along the way.
That won’t stop her from finishing our 5Ks in 50 states with gusto and giving it all she’s got. It’s just that it seems that all she’s got at this point, is not all that much. Julie has experienced “overtrained” before. It’s not a great place to get. And it’s a place that takes significant time and rest to recover from. With one month left in the trip and only 3 races to go – if that is what this is – there is time for real recovery on the horizon. For now, well, here we are. And, Julie is officially declaring it all worth it.
Despite all of this, the world of running is one, like so many others, of relativity, Julie’s rough time still earned her a first place finish in her age group. She managed to keep her average pace where she intended, delivering an average of 9:43 for the duration. Meanwhile, Ryan finished almost 8 minutes ahead of her and only managed to snag a second place medal. It is all relative, indeed.
R and J in the USA 
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