Up until this point my 5k goals have been pretty much the same: survive and have fun. However, this being my 4th try at it, I think it’s time to step things up. Exactly how though, is slightly a different story.

This time around, my base line goal of “completing injury free and have fun,” should be a given. So at the very least, my goal is to get a PR. 48:22, I’m gunning for you! From there, it gets a little grey, so I can definitely use advise if anybody has some.

New’ish Goals

Here are my proposed new goals:

1. Doable goal – Get that PR. Take down Bucktown’s 48:22
2. Push goal – Run/jog the entire distance
3. Pie in the sky goal – Sub 45 minutes.

Here’s where it gets slightly tricky. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you may notice goals 2 & 3 have remained the same since the beginning, only this time in reverse order.

I always figured that I wouldn’t be able to make a sub 45 without running the entire time, however, as I discussed in my post a few days ago, my pace has been slower than anticipated this time around.

I feel this pace may be slower due to the new corrections to my form which was addressed when I was in PT. I’m using my leg muscles more evenly, so I have to build the endurance in different muscles this time around. Luckily, they’re the larger muscles, so hopefully that will benefit the training.

Looking Back

My freak out about the slow pace in my previous post may have been a bit premature. I think that workout (posted about here) may have been an anomaly. Looking back at my workouts just before Bucktown, the pace was similar to, if not, slightly slower than what I’m doing now.

In the end, the largest contributor to the final time is time spent walking. I think that’s the main reason I elevated my endurance goal to take higher precedence than my speed goal. I think in the long term, mentally, being able to say I ran a competitive 5k without stopping will give me more confidence than a speed goal would.

A huge contributing factor is that since Hot Chocolate is also a 15k race, they will have pacers. That will prevent me from going too quickly that first mile and exhausting myself early so I’ve done in the past.

Geeking Out

Here’s my splits from my last two workouts. This morning was Week 7 Day 2 of the C25K program. It called for straight up running 25 minutes, although I pushed through until 30 minutes because I was feeling good:

Comparing this to last week’s workouts, those had walk breaks scheduled as per the C25K program and these were straight through runs. Either way, my overall pace is a full minute ahead of last week and I even picked up 15 seconds between workouts this week.

At these paces it would have given me 48:31 and 47:44 5k times (or 3.83 and 3.9 mph pace), had I kept this pace the entire time. That’s hovering around that elusive 48:22 (3.85 mph) Bucktown time, which amazes me because I walked a lot of that race, so I must have been going real fast when I was running!

It’s also amazing how seemingly minuscule differences in pace time can make the difference between making my goal and not. 0.1 mph difference feels like nothing on the treadmill, but there’s only a .02 mph difference between the first run’s pace and the Bucktown pace.

Listening To My Body

Of course, the wild card in all of this is what I eluded to when talking about that Bucktown pace, my excitement. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the moment and go too fast, however, this time I’m much more confident I will not crap out early for a couple reasons.

1. As I mentioned before, Hot Chocolate will have pacers, so I won’t go too fast from the get go.
2. When I did go too fast at the beginning, it led to calf cramps. My new running form distributing the pressure more evenly throughout my legs will hopefully take the pressure off the calves.

So, right now I think I’ll line up in the 15:30 pace corral. I’ve noticed that it takes me a bit of a warm up on long runs. Between 0.5-1 mile is when I feel the worst and when I feel like stopping. I have thoughts like, “maybe this isn’t my day” during that time.

However, once I get past that initial hump around the 1 mile marker, I usually get into a groove and things are much better. I just have to keep a check on my emotions/competitive spirit and go from there. Start with the 15:30 peeps, and if I’m feeling good, then start to pick up the pace from there.

Seems like a plan to me! We’ll see how the rest of this week’s training goes and we’ll figure out the final plan of attack to make my 5k goals happen!