3 posts tagged “5k”
Good run at the Bucktown 5K this morning. I stayed with my man Justin for the first 200m or so, who was pretty psyched to finally get his first-ever 5K under way. (He did great.) Once he started to get into his meticulously-planned Shuffle playlist I knew he was beyond reaching from this mortal plane, so I got into my 5K pace and kept it moving, finishing with a 21:30. Meanwhile, John ended up reconnecting with his clearly misspent youth, posting a 19:51 for a ridiculous 6:23/mile pace.
Up next: a couple of days off! Enough with the running for a two-day stretch or so. I'm feeling usual shifting array of aches and pains around my calves and quads, so I think some rest and ice is called for. This week continues the taper, with a 4/5/4 schedule. I'm dropping that first 4 and maybe swimming that day instead. (Have I mentioned that I think swimming is an effective antidote to the high-impact punishment running doles out? I do, I do. Keep at it, wefloat.)
Last night's 5-miler was one of the last 5s of training. I gotta believe there is a new groove in the pavement between my house in Park Ridge and Edison Park, just over the Chicago city limits, from all the 5s I've run along the mostly-straight route connecting the two. Night runs are usually the ones that encourage me to push it, usually because I feel a lot more relaxed and limber than I do after just rolling outta bed at 5 am. Tonight I started tweaking the mix on my Shuffle for race day, and the playlist called for fast and lots of it, so I obliged.
6:52 was my five mile pace, with a hot lap of 6:45 (mile 3). That's the fastest I can ever recall running a similar distance, and here it is, coming so late in training. I can't say I'm not feeling it this morning (blasted right Achilles, little tweak in my lower back). But I'm pretty psyched to know I can put together five sub-7 miles, period. I know I'm going to need a stretch like this somewhere during the marathon because of how slow the first ~4 miles of the course are likely to be.
This weekend calls for 12 with my CARA group on Saturday and then the Bucktown 5K on Sunday, which I'll be running with John and Justin. Assuming I foolishly burned all my speed credits for the week last night, I'll plan to look for John lounging around the bagel table as I cross the finish line; he's looking to run one of his high school cross country-era splits during the race, and having failed to keep up with him on multiple occasions in the past, I
can tell you the odds are good he'll fly. Now, Justin's running his first-ever 5K, and I think he'll set a PR that blows his mind. Raceday adrenaline is a pretty remarkable thing, Ward-o.
Over the weekend, I watched a couple of in-laws (my wife's cousins) complete their first-ever half marathons here in Chicago. It was great to see them and many other first-timers cross the line with that telltale mix of elation and exhaustion they've never quite experienced before. It got me thinking about how great it is to do something like this for the very first time, even if you're just starting out with a couch-to-5K. The scale of the accomplishment is totally independent of the distance covered, because it's always about conquering doubt first, physical limitations second.
I've been keeping a separate training log from the GPS data grabbed by my Garmin Forerunner 205; what's gone in there has been largely a daily chronicle of aches, pains, and annoyances, written in an unsteady, sweaty hand. (Gross.) However, I noticed that just this morning I ran my 400th mile since June 24. You better believe I'm into that second pair of shoes — the 'race day kicks' — by now; the old Asics had all the bounce of bathroom slippers the last time I tried them for a 5-miler.
