How much should a 5K hurt (Read 2678 times)

Okay, this has been really intersting and helpful as a guide for just how you ought to feel in a 5k.

How about a 10k, I have one of those in a few weeks and was just wondering how you should feel during the various stages of that race?

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When I hear the 1st mile split being called out and its at my redline limit, I am thinking oh my god this is going to hurt .  After 2 miles I am thinking this is crazy - I am going to end up in the ER if I am not careful.

 

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Nice job pushing it that hard -- I am having trouble daring to push that hard in the first half.

On 7-25-09 I will be running my 20th. 5K race, check this race name out.  The Shithouse 5K in LaCrosse, WI.  also the race starts right next to a sewage plant.  That's what I like about 5K's they are all unique races.  Any tips on my pushing harder would be great and thanks again for all the posts, they were great and some were hilarious.  P.J. (Viking Chrome.)

 Awesome...that race sounds excellent!  Another WI native and a Scandinavian, from the sound of things!  We don't need to be fast...we can bludgeon the competition and plunder their villages...muwahahahaha...uff da!

As for 5ks...I kind of avoid them.  Often they are coupled with a longer distance, like a 15k or HM, so I always choose the longer race.  When I do any distance shorter than a 25k I like to run a mile or two warm-up...otherwise I spend at least half of the race just trying to find my groove.  But they still hurt pretty much after the first half mile.

 

About just as bad, but it lasts twice as long

 

Well maybe you should feel 90 -95% as bad first half and the second half just gets worse....then your good.  The key for 10k is you should be just at or slightly above your "Redline" where as a 5k you are below the "Redline" whatever that may be for you.

Too funny.  Yeah, it hurts pretty bad.  I'd say the 2nd half of the 10k hurts like the 5k.  During the 1st half I try to control my pace else I'll suffer badly.  In general, you should start to question your sanity at 5 miles rather than 2.5 miles (in the 5k).  At that point try to speed up.

When I PR'ed in the 10k last Fall, I hit the 3 mile mark at around my average 5k finish time.  So, I was ~12 secs per mile slower than 5k pace.  Luckily I held that pace through the 2nd half of the race for a pretty even split.  I was busting a lung in the last mile.

Mich - If your 5ks don't hurt until the 2 mile marker you're not going hard enough. 

p.s. the Shithouse 5k (LOL) would seem rather... errr... aromatic...

Describing pain is notoriously hard. There have been numerous attempts to quantify it but some recent discoveries about the genetics involved have helped explain why two people may describe the same physical event very differently.

One of the more successful attempts to describe pain is the Schmidt Sting pain index which takes an unusual, and rather poetic. approach to describing the intensity of different insect stings. Justin Schmidt experienced the stings of 78 different insect species to come up with his 4-point scale:

1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.
 

 So how about it, anyone want to come up with Running ahead guide to race pain? 1mile, 5k, 10k, half, full and ultra?

The more colorful the better. It might also need two columns, one for a good day and one for a bad day.

John

 I've been bitten by a scoprion and a cobra.  While The snake bite lasted a whole lot longer, the scoprion bite is sharper/intense. 

I broke many a bone while I was young, and fell into an open well once (log I was diving from broke off) and scraped the front of my body, not sure which was more painful.  So the rating of the pain scale is definitely more subjective than a number.

 I don't feel pain per se in races, more like a steadily increasing, intense discomfort (not the same as pain) at the same time as my desire to slow down or stop is also elevating.  I think I'd drop from the race if what I was feeling I could describe as pain.

That is probably a more accurate assesment of race pain. 

Just thinking this morning on run that the "pain" I thought I felt on 5 mile race sunday was more like a gentle burning of the lungs and the real "pain" was 99% mental as the bad part of your mind is telling you ... "No way we keep this up for 2 more miles .... We are going to Bonk old man" .... So then have to fire back "Shut up Wus .... Give me another 1/2 mile and then we will see" ; "Ok we did not die ... Another half mile than we are in the 1 mile stretch .. who can't survive that ... it will all be over in 7 - 7.5 minutes ... Come on".

Then when done and get over the 1 - 2 recovery its like "damn ... should have went faster".