The hardest part about my inaugural Anywhere5K wasn’t finishing the run, it was picking the route.
With every nearby trail and roadway in play, how do you filter down the hundreds of options into the perfect one for a race? What’s needed is a 5K route checklist, which I developed while making my choice for Saturday’s run.
I couldn’t be happier with my eventual selection of Salem Lake Trail. Not only was my time a personal best for the past 10 years, it eclipsed by more than a minute any other organized 5K race. Some of the credit for that goes to better training. Some goes to the motivation of being part of the Anywhere5K community. Some goes to not being boxed in behind hundreds of slow runners at the start.
But much of the credit goes to the route. Here’s the five criteria I used: