What the K?

In the last two years I've had occasion to run some of the local 5k races.  About a year ago, at the Jenny Kuzma Memorial 5k out in Bergen, I first encountered a race that had kilometer splits.  Warming up on the course, I spotted the signs at each kilometer.  My initial reaction was a slightly negative bias against the unfamiliar.  But, as I thought about it, I decided to use the signs to check my pacing during the race.  I hoped to finish in the 25-minute range so it wasn't hard to calculate that I needed to pass each sign at 5-minute intervals, e.g., 1k at 5:00, 2k at 10:00, 3k at 15:00. 

In the 2009 race, a slow start and the long gradual grade up Lake Avenue put me behind target pace, reaching the 1k sign at about 5:12.  I knew I needed to pick up the pace long before the Pete Van Peursem called out my time at the mile mark.  At the 2k sign, my time was 10:10 and I passed the 3k sign in 15:08.  Before completing the second mile of the race, I had two splits under the goal 5 minutes per kilometer to lift my morale.  I hit the 4k sign at 20:05 and, even while in extremis running on the "red line," it was easy enough to understand that I had an outside chance to get under 25 minutes.  I came close, finishing at 25:01, but the point of this narrative is that having kilometer splits in the race made on-the-run monitoring of my pace so much easier and effective. 

Since that race, I run a couple of 5k races with kilometer marks and some with only the usual mile marks.  I'm now convinced that all 5k's should have each kilometer clearly marked on the course.    The usual mile marks in the 5k just give you two useful splits (the 3-mile split is too close to the finish to have much practical value) versus four splits when each kilometer is marked.