We hit a big milestone in the year on Saturday.

I think I talked about this at the beginning of the year when I set the goals, but it’s nice to have these little races dotted throughout the year, giving me dates to look forward to.

The first quarter of the year didn’t have many of those, other than the 5K I ran in Somerville about a month ago.

But I knew that once we hit the Boston 5K (formerly, I think, called the BAA 5K), we’d have event after event coming at pretty regular clips.

So that’s the first thing to note about the Boston 5K - after so much anticipation, it was over in a blink.

My biggest worry about the race was parking in Boston. I toyed with parking in my go-to spots in the Boston area, but on a Saturday morning there would either be a 2-hour limit or meters would be in effect, and I’d have pressure to get back to the car.

It would also mean I’d have to get there super-early, and take the T…which I never love relying on when there are time constraints like a race start time.

So I drove right downtown and parked in a garage. I figured the money spent was worth the peace of mind, not having to worry about getting to the start.

So I ended up getting to Boston Common (after checking my bag so I didn’t have to carry the garage ticket) a little more than an hour early. Which was good - I had the chance to explore the tent, do a little warm-up jog, and plenty of stretching. And I ran into a running club friend who I chatted with, so it was a nice hour.

I don’t get pre-run nerves with a 5K like with a marathon. A marathon always comes with a “Boy I hope I can do this.” I am confident I can do a 5K. It just depends on how fast.

Turns out, on Saturday, pretty fast. (For me.)

I beat the time I had last month, with a 26:13. That’s as good as I ever run a 5K. I think if I focused solely on 5K running I could trim that down, but I’m very happy with beating 9-minute miles.

The course was neat - it went from the Common/Public Garden up towards Boston University, around into Kenmore Square, and from there followed the Marathon route right to the Marathon finish line. (Going in I mistakenly thought it was going to go further into the BU campus and then come back towards Kenmore via Beacon Street. I just read the map wrong.) (Also, I must say - runners can be really rude. Everyone started running before the start line - because they follow the crowd. Someone started running, so everyone started running. But I had seen where the start line was as I was walking to the Common, so I just walked - I wasn’t going to run before the race started. A couple of guys elbowed me as they ran past…this was still before the start line. Idiots.)

Speaking of being elbowed - it was crowded. There were roughly 10,000 runners - probably by far the largest 5K I’ll ever run. I managed to thread my way through the crowd pretty effectively - without elbowing anyone, I might add - and never felt like someone else was affecting my pace negatively.

It was a good run. It was cool to finish up Hereford and down Boylston out of breath as I ran hard, but certainly nowhere near as spent as I was in my two Boston Marathons.

I wish I soaked in the atmosphere a little more. It was cool for a 5K - lots of people cheering. But it’s hard - I kind of need to think about my running so I don’t mess up my pace.

Pretty good swag at these BAA races - a very nice t-shirt, a bunch of snacks, and I took that cool picture you see above. (I’d like to do that for all three races of the Medley but it depends on how long the lines are. This one wasn’t too bad so I did it. Not sure how it’ll be at the 10K and Half Marathon, though there are Distance Medley finish areas so maybe that will help control the crowds.)

After the race I walked over to the Boston Marathon Expo - what a dud. I did some research (aka I texted my friend Kevin, confident he’d look up what was up) about the lack of booths and it turns out companies think it’s better to invest in the pop-up stores in the area rather than spend money on Expo booths. It was weird how empty the space in the convention center was other than the Adidas store.

I didn’t check out the pop-up shops - they’re kind of spread out all over the place. (The Clif Bar, for example, was on one side of Boylston Street, and many others are on Newbury Street on the other side of Boylston.)

Instead I came home, painted a bit, and watched the Mets. I intended to nap but I never did.

So that’s it - one-third of the way through the Distance Medley, and on our way to accomplishing another 2025 goal.

As for race goals, I think I accomplished this one - I just wanted to be better in April than I was in March.

Next will be the 10K on June 22 - my goal there will be to beat an hour.