In July, I felt great running a 7:32 pace 5K. Then I hurt my wrist playing softball, spent three weeks doing basically no physical activity while it healed and finished the month feeling slow and lazy. And that was a great thing.
The reason is that it made me really commit to doing something different with my routine. Since the last time I did a half marathon — which you probably won’t remember came after months of physical therapy to get back to running after a hip injury — I’ve been just running to run without much rhyme or reason to pace or distance beyond whatever I was feeling that day.
Thankfully the folks at Runner’s World magazine regularly publish training schedules for various distances, and right around the time I was thinking I needed more structure, I turned a page and saw “Run your fastest 5K.”
A lot of these plans are not realistic for my work schedule, but this one featured a great balance of flexibility and really hard runs that I thought would work. It has. Really, really well.
Last weekend, basically in the middle of this 10-week plan, I ran a 10K race with a goal of finishing at 8:00 per mile pace. It had the added bonus of taking place in my old neighborhood, so for six miles I would be running on the exact streets where I used to do all my training.
I knew from that experience that the biggest challenge was the pair of hills between 2.5 and 3.5 miles, and that if I got to the top of the second one still on pace, I had it made. So what happened?
Yeah, I crushed it. I was nervous at the start line because there just did not seem to be enough people near the front, but as soon as the horn went off I slipped in behind a guy who seemed to have the kind of pace I needed. I was a little worried after mile two that I had gone out a little fast, but I also knew that by doing that, I had a bank of seconds I could cash in during the hill miles.
When I finished the hills and had actually banked more time, mentally I was stoked, while physically I was in “hang on for dear life” mode. Fortunately there was no race photographer in mile five as we rolled through one more mini hill I forgot about. I usually look absolutely miserable in those photos, but on this day I was able to see the photographer from wayyyyyy far away as we rolled through the middle of mile six.
“Look like you’re having a good time, look like you’re having a good time, look like you’re having a good time…”
“Am I pulling this off? Maybe…”
“Oh yeah, toooootally believable…”
At that point I had just about half a mile to go, with only a slight incline into the school parking lot and then a nice downhill to the track and 100 meters to the finish line. Even though I knew I had very much accomplished my goal, I did my best to remember that all I had to do for the rest of the day was sleep, so there was no reason not to empty the tank.
The photographer at the finish line caught a much more typical cjhannas race photo.
I need a haircut. After catching my breath and drinking some water, I started to walk away from the finish back to my car. But just then there was an announcement that the first results had been posted and awards would start soon. This race gave awards to the top three overall finishers and the top three in each age group (30-34 for me).
I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take two minutes to check out where I ended up in relation to the rest of the field. I had no expectation that I would be in the running for an age group award since in the past few years I’ve typically been something like 10th.
Well, my 7:41 overall pace was good enough to be 22nd overall and third in my age group, which meant I got to take home a gift certificate to my excellent local running store.
There are four weeks left on the training plan and it ends at my next planned race, a Halloween-themed 5K. From there I’m planning another 5K on Thanksgiving and one in mid-December. The goal is to run a 6:45 pace for one of them. I feel great about my chances.