Today I ran a 5K put on by the school I work for. No big deal…except the race started at 10:30. That’s super late and presented a couple light logistical problems. One being what to eat beforehand. I went back to my track team roots and had oranges and chocolate for breakfast.

More on my race to come later.

On April 15th I ran my first 5K. 28:23 was my time. My goal for this race, aside of finishing of course, was to come in something below 30’. A week or so prior, I did a race-pace training run at 27’ dead. During that run, I went out fast, a first mile of just over 8’, slowed down dramatically for the next 1.5 miles, then really turned it on at the end. 

Originally, I didn’t expect to run my first race in April, but I was already training at 3 miles. I figured why not just get the first one out of the way. Speaking of my training, I’ll give a few updates to what’s been happening lately.

Although I haven’t written here in a while, that is no reflection on my running. I’m running a few times a week, at distances bewteen 2 and 3.5 miles. I’m not as strict now with my running schedule as I was before the race. At one point I was running as many as 7 days straight before a rest day. Most of my training up to 3 miles saw me running 6 days straight. In hindsight, I was runing too often. I run back-to-back days every now and then, but usually at least one day rest. Nevertheless, I’m very glad I adhered to that schedule inthe beginning. it got me well acclimated to running when I don’t feel like running. Sure, some mornings I’d rather sleep, and when I start to get my gear on I’m protesting to myself in my head. But, at least that discomfort is familiar. I’ll take familiar discomfort over unfamiliar any day. 

After the race, I sorta felt lost. My initial goal when I started running again was to run a 5K. Although I love to run and don’t require a distance or time goal, I still felt a bit out of sorts. I decided to sorta reverse my training philosophy. Now that I’m able to run a 5K, I want to get faster. I started one day with a mile. A fast mile, to stretch my legs and see what I was capable of doing at about 85%. I clocked a time several seconds under 8’. The moment I stopped, I knew I could go faster, but I was pleased. I then spent a couple weeks slowly getting back up to 3m, but paying more attention to pace. I’ve done 3m under 27’, which I’m prety damn proud about. If only that first race had mile markers, I’m sure I could have come in much closer to my 27’ personal best. 

The weather has started to warm up here and I’m needing my cold-weather gear less and less. For the most part, that means more gear. Hopefully, it doesn’t set me back too much. I’m lucky to have gotten a great pair of shoes when I did. I’ll be good on shoes until the end of the summer, most likely.

More updates soon!

Today I registered for my first official 5K. As of the last week or so, I’ve been doing a 5K in the mornings. I initially wanted to build to a longer distance for my daily run, so the race felt short and fast. But, I figured there’s no harm in running a race now. I suppose my next goal will be to bring down my time. :-) Go me.

Up to this point, I have been incrementally increasing my distance, then trying to go faster at that distance. Today, I slowed down and quite easily got to 1.75m, my longest yet. The difference of 30-40 seconds per mile of pace is widening. I’ve always been able to go farther if I slow down, but not by a large margin. It’s different now.

When I get to a distance, I do well slowly building pace at that distance. So, I’ve decided to get to my target distance, then worry about pace. My target distance is 4 miles, over twice what I’m running now. But, I think I can get there relatively quickly if I keep my pace between 9:30 and 10’/m. My goal then will be to speed up to a sub 9’ pace.

I’m excited for the road ahead.

I haven’t blogged in a while, but my running schedule is still going strong. I sent back the new swanky phone that helped me use MapMyRun and write posts from the bus in the morning. I should be garnering a replacement very soon. In the meantime, I’ll fill you in on what’s been happening:

I’m up to a mile & a half, threatening to stretch it further. The old addage of “the first mile is the toughest” rings true with me. I find that I’m stopping only because I think I should, but I am no more tired at the end than I am at 1 mile, or 1.25 miles. I do a 1-mile loop, along the same route I’ve been running the last few weeks. So, I get a nice feeling when I go through points on the route where I used to have to stop, or were especially hard. My track background makes doing laps very familiar. 

I started out running 5 days, then taking a day off. That moved to 6, and now it’s 7. Yesterday was my day off, and this morning I had no problem stretching out another block. My eventual goal is a respectable 5K. My short goal is 2 miles, one slow, one fast. At this rate, I’ll be at 2 miles in two weeks. 

Yesterday I wore the wrong shoes and took a tumble. Nothing too bad, just some minor scapes. It taught me a litle about the route I run, however. Some parts were bone dry, others still had snow from the night before. A very light disting of snow with crystalline ice under it. I bought the trail shoes for this exact purpose, but I do not like running in them on dry ground. I feel like the knobby sole causes too much friction. I haven’t run yet today, and I’m tempted to give the dry-weather shoes another go since it was plenty sunny yesterday. I’ll be more careful on the turns, which is how I fell. I hated going to slow though…

Also, I’ve been occasionally icing my shins. They aren’t a big problem, just some general soreness.

I’m looking forward to getting out there!