The UW Running Club organizes a 15 K race at Warner Park in the Fall. So it is cleverly names the Fall 15 K. It’s the only 15 K race in the area, and it’s an interesting distance to run. I started running this in 2000, it was kind of the big race at the end of my running year when I started. Of course in retrospect, it was really my gateway distance to running half marathons – if I could do 15 K, it wasn’t much of a stretch to get to 21.1 K.

I did my first half marathon in the Spring of 2003, so I continued my fall tradition of doing the Fall 15 K for a few more years. But eventually I had other races in the fall, and then started doing a fall half marathon, so I stopped running the Fall 15 K.

But a few years ago, I decided to start running it again, mainly because my fall half marathon training group insists on doing a 12 mile run before the taper begins. I prefer to run a slightly shorter distance that close to race day. The 15 K is perfect for this. I really don’t treat it as a race, but more of a supported training run. It’s a fun course to run and the race is very well organized and I enjoy doing it.