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hoopsguy · 07-25-2014, 07:02 AM

Last night I ran the 5k race that I've been training for over the past couple of months.

When I ran this last year it was my first 5k; 2nd run, but the Chase challenge is 3.5 miles so a weird distance. I had a target time of 26:30 and posted a 25:20 so I was really excited about the progress I was making. Two days later, I had another 5k and lowered that time to 25:05.

I didn't schedule another 5k until Halloween that year, fearing the hot August months and for whatever reason struggling to get an event on the books in September. My running tailed off without having the carrot of a race in front of me and I didn't adequately pick up the pace as the race got close. It was cold outside (or at least cold enough for me to make excuses) in October and I had grown to dislike the treadmill runs. That Halloween run came in at 25:04, which was a little galling as I felt like I screwed up not getting my times under 25 last year.

Anyway, I didn't run in any meaningful way at all this winter. Let my weight creep up another 5-10 pounds in the process and when I got outside for my first runs this spring my 5k runs had me finishing in the 28+ minute range. Which was a little dismaying, as I wasn't prepared for that much of a backslide. I got the time down to 26:30 for an early April run and then got to work with a more aggressive commitment to running this year with the goal of lowering my times below where they had been this year. 24 was the written goal (on Smashrun) along with 1,000 miles for the year.

Subsequent runs this year have been a bit goofy. There was a small run 15 minutes from home in the first week in May where the course turned out to be 4.4km. On that day I wasn't going to get 25 minutes, but obviously it was disappointing to not see the final time at the right distance. The Chicago iteration of the Chase Corporate Challenge was three weeks later, but that is a 3.5 mile race. My pace for that run was right around 25:00 but still no PR to hang my hat on under what had become a bit of a mental block.

Three weeks later, I finally broke through on a training run and posted a 24.34 time. So at this point, my goals for the July 5k race changed, and I wanted to see if I could run at 24.00. I stuck religiously to the Hal Higdon intermediate training plan for the next 5 weeks, breaking it only in the final week as I had this 5k followed by a 10k on Saturday. The plan called for a number of easy runs and long runs, with only the tempo runs giving me meaningful insight into where I was on my 5k time. That last week I adjusted to provide me with a little different taper (3 days rest), and in the two days before the rest I wanted to see what I could do with some speed running last weekend to let me know if I was on target for my 24 minute goal.

The 5k test run on Saturday came in at 24:44. It wasn't a great test, as I originally started the run adhering to the 5 mile fast HH recommendation, but changed my mind about 2km into the run. My pacing was a bit off, there were a few more hills than I would do for a flat track, and other things I could rationalize in my head but this still was a fair amount away from my goal.

I had figured out that I wanted to try and (near) negative split the 5k, breaking it into the following intervals:
1km - 5:00
2km - 4:50
3km - 4:40
4km - 4:40
5km - 4:40

Which would represent a 23:50 time. However, I had never run 3km at a 4:40 pace before, let alone the closing 3km of a race. So Sunday I set out to run 3km at the fastest pace I could hold, and posted a time that represented an average of 4:30. Mission accomplished, time for my rest, and to see if the 24 mark was falling.

Weather was perfect for the run. 70 degrees, nothing scary on humidity front, running on Lake Michigan with maybe 8mph winds. I was running with a bunch of people from work and we were late making our way over to the start. There were no gates segregating runners here, so our position was not optimal. 800 runners, we were middle of the pack, and looking around me I was pretty sure I was going to have to be pretty aggressive passing people around me out of the chute if I wanted to get off to the fast start needed to hit my time.

Which is exactly what I did. The race was run on a pretty wide bike path, so I was swerving off the fine gravel surface onto grass pretty regularly over the first 1/2km in an effort to find a group running at my pace. Which was about 4:40 ... hmm, time to change attack plans and see if I could run the first 3 km at 4:40 and then hold on tight for the last two km. I knew I was running fairly easy now, but I also recalled just how gassed I was on Sunday after 3km at 4:30.

At the 3km mark I was on pace for my 4:40 plan. Looking at the Strava data, the splits were 4:39/4:39/4:36 but I was starting to hit a wall. The two mile mark is regularly where I start to suffer on my training runs, and where I would sometimes stop last year. Now I am better about slowing my pace and finishing the run with a lesser time, but that wasn't a real option for me if I wanted to hit my 24:00 goal. I wasn't running the numbers in my head super-clearly at this point, but I did know that I would have to sustain 5 minute kilometers the rest of the way to hit my goal. Which was doable, but probably not if I fell back to 5:00 for my 4th km. So time to push through ...

4th km time was 4:46, which let me know that I was in really good shape for hitting my goal. That was reassuring because I was gassed at this point. I made a point of refusing to look at my heart rate for fear that it would demoralize me. It definitely would have, as my average heart rate for the 4th km was 181. The 3rd kilometer was 177, which also falls into my "anaerobic" zone. As I pushed down the stretch the pace on my watch was showing somewhere in the 4:45 range, so I was going to post a nice mid-23 time.

Only the race was coming to an end too soon. My watch said 4.5km, but I could see the finish line. No way that was another 1/2km away. My legs were shot, but I tried to push it up to another gear to close out the race. I think I managed to pass about the same number of people who passed me at this point but it wasn't much of a finishing kick. Some of my co-workers were cheering me on with about 150m to go, with one yelling, "don't look at your time, just dig in!" without realizing that I wasn't sweating time but the fact that there was no way in hell that this was going to be a 5km race.

I crossed the finish line with the distance being about 4.85km and kept my run going for a few paces. Here was my inner monologue at this point:
- "Just keep running until your watch says 5.0km so this is official on your watch, if not on the race site"
- "I'm being a little rude barreling through this crowd of people, sucking on orange slices and having their post race conversations with family/friends"
- "I'm really, really, really tired"

So I cut bait at 4.9km, with a time of 22:54. No official 5k race time under 25 minutes to call my own, but I do know that the training over the past two months (120km last month, probably a smidge more this month) has paid off in much faster times. I need to get another 5k on the books soon; no waiting until October this year. And then I'll see if I can post a time under 23 minutes this year, which was my goal time internally before my fat, out-of-shape ass posted 28+ minutes on the first run of the spring.

10k on Saturday. It will be my first time running a race at that distance, although I've done weekend runs at this distance several times, including just about every weekend in June and July. My best time for a 10k is just under 55 minutes, and I'm hoping to improve that by a couple of minutes tomorrow. But I'm not going into it with the same kind of emphasis on time as I had for this 5k. I don't really know what I can run at this distance, and accept that if I push for something like a 52:00 that I may end up crashing and burning. So whatever happens, happens. I just want to feel good about this run and set a time to target for the next time I get out and run at this distance.

07-25-2014, 07:02 AM	#1673
hoopsguy General Manager Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Chicago	Last night I ran the 5k race that I've been training for over the past couple of months. When I ran this last year it was my first 5k; 2nd run, but the Chase challenge is 3.5 miles so a weird distance. I had a target time of 26:30 and posted a 25:20 so I was really excited about the progress I was making. Two days later, I had another 5k and lowered that time to 25:05. I didn't schedule another 5k until Halloween that year, fearing the hot August months and for whatever reason struggling to get an event on the books in September. My running tailed off without having the carrot of a race in front of me and I didn't adequately pick up the pace as the race got close. It was cold outside (or at least cold enough for me to make excuses) in October and I had grown to dislike the treadmill runs. That Halloween run came in at 25:04, which was a little galling as I felt like I screwed up not getting my times under 25 last year. Anyway, I didn't run in any meaningful way at all this winter. Let my weight creep up another 5-10 pounds in the process and when I got outside for my first runs this spring my 5k runs had me finishing in the 28+ minute range. Which was a little dismaying, as I wasn't prepared for that much of a backslide. I got the time down to 26:30 for an early April run and then got to work with a more aggressive commitment to running this year with the goal of lowering my times below where they had been this year. 24 was the written goal (on Smashrun) along with 1,000 miles for the year. Subsequent runs this year have been a bit goofy. There was a small run 15 minutes from home in the first week in May where the course turned out to be 4.4km. On that day I wasn't going to get 25 minutes, but obviously it was disappointing to not see the final time at the right distance. The Chicago iteration of the Chase Corporate Challenge was three weeks later, but that is a 3.5 mile race. My pace for that run was right around 25:00 but still no PR to hang my hat on under what had become a bit of a mental block. Three weeks later, I finally broke through on a training run and posted a 24.34 time. So at this point, my goals for the July 5k race changed, and I wanted to see if I could run at 24.00. I stuck religiously to the Hal Higdon intermediate training plan for the next 5 weeks, breaking it only in the final week as I had this 5k followed by a 10k on Saturday. The plan called for a number of easy runs and long runs, with only the tempo runs giving me meaningful insight into where I was on my 5k time. That last week I adjusted to provide me with a little different taper (3 days rest), and in the two days before the rest I wanted to see what I could do with some speed running last weekend to let me know if I was on target for my 24 minute goal. The 5k test run on Saturday came in at 24:44. It wasn't a great test, as I originally started the run adhering to the 5 mile fast HH recommendation, but changed my mind about 2km into the run. My pacing was a bit off, there were a few more hills than I would do for a flat track, and other things I could rationalize in my head but this still was a fair amount away from my goal. I had figured out that I wanted to try and (near) negative split the 5k, breaking it into the following intervals: 1km - 5:00 2km - 4:50 3km - 4:40 4km - 4:40 5km - 4:40 Which would represent a 23:50 time. However, I had never run 3km at a 4:40 pace before, let alone the closing 3km of a race. So Sunday I set out to run 3km at the fastest pace I could hold, and posted a time that represented an average of 4:30. Mission accomplished, time for my rest, and to see if the 24 mark was falling. Weather was perfect for the run. 70 degrees, nothing scary on humidity front, running on Lake Michigan with maybe 8mph winds. I was running with a bunch of people from work and we were late making our way over to the start. There were no gates segregating runners here, so our position was not optimal. 800 runners, we were middle of the pack, and looking around me I was pretty sure I was going to have to be pretty aggressive passing people around me out of the chute if I wanted to get off to the fast start needed to hit my time. Which is exactly what I did. The race was run on a pretty wide bike path, so I was swerving off the fine gravel surface onto grass pretty regularly over the first 1/2km in an effort to find a group running at my pace. Which was about 4:40 ... hmm, time to change attack plans and see if I could run the first 3 km at 4:40 and then hold on tight for the last two km. I knew I was running fairly easy now, but I also recalled just how gassed I was on Sunday after 3km at 4:30. At the 3km mark I was on pace for my 4:40 plan. Looking at the Strava data, the splits were 4:39/4:39/4:36 but I was starting to hit a wall. The two mile mark is regularly where I start to suffer on my training runs, and where I would sometimes stop last year. Now I am better about slowing my pace and finishing the run with a lesser time, but that wasn't a real option for me if I wanted to hit my 24:00 goal. I wasn't running the numbers in my head super-clearly at this point, but I did know that I would have to sustain 5 minute kilometers the rest of the way to hit my goal. Which was doable, but probably not if I fell back to 5:00 for my 4th km. So time to push through ... 4th km time was 4:46, which let me know that I was in really good shape for hitting my goal. That was reassuring because I was gassed at this point. I made a point of refusing to look at my heart rate for fear that it would demoralize me. It definitely would have, as my average heart rate for the 4th km was 181. The 3rd kilometer was 177, which also falls into my "anaerobic" zone. As I pushed down the stretch the pace on my watch was showing somewhere in the 4:45 range, so I was going to post a nice mid-23 time. Only the race was coming to an end too soon. My watch said 4.5km, but I could see the finish line. No way that was another 1/2km away. My legs were shot, but I tried to push it up to another gear to close out the race. I think I managed to pass about the same number of people who passed me at this point but it wasn't much of a finishing kick. Some of my co-workers were cheering me on with about 150m to go, with one yelling, "don't look at your time, just dig in!" without realizing that I wasn't sweating time but the fact that there was no way in hell that this was going to be a 5km race. I crossed the finish line with the distance being about 4.85km and kept my run going for a few paces. Here was my inner monologue at this point: - "Just keep running until your watch says 5.0km so this is official on your watch, if not on the race site" - "I'm being a little rude barreling through this crowd of people, sucking on orange slices and having their post race conversations with family/friends" - "I'm really, really, really tired" So I cut bait at 4.9km, with a time of 22:54. No official 5k race time under 25 minutes to call my own, but I do know that the training over the past two months (120km last month, probably a smidge more this month) has paid off in much faster times. I need to get another 5k on the books soon; no waiting until October this year. And then I'll see if I can post a time under 23 minutes this year, which was my goal time internally before my fat, out-of-shape ass posted 28+ minutes on the first run of the spring. 10k on Saturday. It will be my first time running a race at that distance, although I've done weekend runs at this distance several times, including just about every weekend in June and July. My best time for a 10k is just under 55 minutes, and I'm hoping to improve that by a couple of minutes tomorrow. But I'm not going into it with the same kind of emphasis on time as I had for this 5k. I don't really know what I can run at this distance, and accept that if I push for something like a 52:00 that I may end up crashing and burning. So whatever happens, happens. I just want to feel good about this run and set a time to target for the next time I get out and run at this distance.