I May Be Falling In Love With the 5K

Guess What?

Early start means you get to see the beautiful sunrise.

On Sunday I ran a 5K PR for my 40s (actually faster than any 5K I'd raced since 2013)!  Average pace of 9:32, beating my previous average 40s PR pace of 9:35, and good enough for 51.49% on the age graded performance scale.  And, there were some non-trivial hills and forced walking on the narrow turns since I started too far in the back of the pack (as in, I could have probably run faster!).  My garmin recorded 3.05 miles, but given the hairpin turns, I think it probably was the full distance.

I have so much love for all of these ladies!

It feels so good to be getting back into faster running shape for the first time in several years.  I may try to get a nice flat 5K into the schedule just for the fun of dropping the current PR a little further.  Also, I love it when I get to run with my local running friends!

If we're being honest, I'm fairly certain I *could* have run much faster than Sunday's time in 2014 and 2015, as I was regularly doing halfs and fulls at decent paces that I probably couldn't do right now during those years, but I didn't really race any 5Ks, so I'll just claim the 5 year PR.

Garden eggplant parmesan with squash is apparently great pre-race fuel!

In a fit of inspiration, I signed up for a Thanksgiving Half Marathon for my first half marathon in over 2.5 years.  I've been regretting this decision as I've failed to properly execute on several of my planned long runs and my sense of dread has been increasing.  But, hope springs eternal...especially after a fun, fast (for me) race.

Last week was a decent week of running, if not spectacular:

M: 5.18 easy with a friend, chatting @ 12:02/mile, 1.9 walking in the city

T: 2.44 biking to and from the trail; 3.01 tempo with F, slowing her down to 10:39/mile; 0.38 jog back to the bike.

W: REST

Th: 1.37 jog/walk; 2 hours gardening

F: 6.01 @ 12:34; 1.53 walk w/8X30s strides and walking recovery in the mid 9s/mile

Sa: 0.87 jog to track; 5 minutes of drills; Cooper test (12 minutes running as far as possible) but targeting a pace I thought I could sustain for Sunday's 5K: 1.27 miles @ 9:27 -- best cooper test I'd done in a few years.  I already felt like this week was a win.  Even if I had a bad race, I had something to smile about. 0.5 jog + 0.17 walk c/d.

Su: 0.83 jog pre-race to and from the car to drop stuff when they announced a delayed start of 7:45 instead of the 7:30 that was advertised.  We cut it very close for 7:30, but we had plenty of time to get our bibs, run our stuff back to the car, and use the porta potties with the 15 minute delay. 5K race; 0.75 miles walk to the car and brunch and back.

The rc.oktober run was small, but well run, early, but with post-race breakfast options in walking range, and the sunrise was beautiful.  E, who is *not* an early morning person, said he would do it again.  Which probably means that I will too.