Your body knows no limits. It's your mind that needs convincing...
I honestly have no clue who said that. Just read it on one of those fitness/motivation poster and I think it holds some truth. It does resonate true to me as I look forward to my next race, a 5K to be run on July 4th. This'll be my first officialy timed 5K, ever. According to recent race times and most online calculators, I should be able to challenge for a sub-20 minutes time over 5K. Maybe my legs can deliver that kind of performance, maybe not, but for now, it's my mind who has a hard time believing it.
I say that thinking back to this morning's 30 minutes progression run. I'd set it up to go easy for one km, then increase the pace to 5:00 for the next km, then 4:40, then 4:20, then have one kilometer at 4:00 before going back to cooldown at easy pace for the time left until 30 minutes.
Here are the splits:
km 1: 5:34.0
km 2: 4:57.5
km 3: 4:37.4
km 4: 4:19.6
km 5: 3:55.6
cooldown: 5:23.3 pace (over 1.56 km)
Yeah, sure, I hit the pace well enough under 4:00/km (3:55/km over 5K would be an awesome 19:38 time) but it was hard. I guess it should be, right? I mean if it were easy, by pushing just a little I'd be able to go under 19, right?
It's just that the heart rate shot up to 159 toward the back end of the kilometer, averaging 158 over the second 500m, so basically holding steady between 157 and 159. And that was only after one tiny kilometer, only 20% of the way...
It goes back to this: I need to convince my mind I can hold this pace for 5 whole kilometers... Or even for 10 kilometers. I mean I have done it... on a downhill course...
Maybe there's still some fatigue in the legs from the staircase challenge and that caused it to feel harder than it would be with rested legs, we'll see...
FM