First 5K Report (Read 48 times)

Well second race, but first since my wife passed in February. Had posted earlier that I was ready to quit running all together but decided to keep going. Since March all I have been doing was building slow (real slow) mileage and just started doing short intervals on Wednesday's the past few weeks so was not ready to race but last week decided to sign up for a 4th of July 5K in Needham as a test.

First 5K race was on New Years day in Needham, MA with a starting temperature of 1 degree and finished in 24:27. Second was almost six months later on 4th of July also in Needham (different course) with a starting temperature of 90 degrees with high humidity with a finishing time of 24:19.  For today I did the first mile in 7:23 and was really not feeling too bad, actually felt I went too easy, the profile had it as a slight down hill. I was experiencing the same elevated heart rate without really suffering (heavy breathing) so I think this again was due to the heat. Second mile was almost all slightly up hill and did that in 8:04 and for the third it was 7:56 and the course leveled off. Average heart rate was 189 and it was really level across the whole race. According to my watch there was a spike of 208 for a moment in mile one but that had to be some sort of technical glitch as I was really going easy during that stretch. Felt I was at my limit the whole time after the first mile so there was nothing more I could have done time wise but the goal again was to do better than an 8 minute mile average so at least I was able to do that. Am rethinking that this year's goal of a sub 7 minute mile average 5K might not be in the cards.

My take away is that at some point when the weather cools off some I will  have a better understanding of where I am at physically but will continue to train as I have with the long run on Saturday, middle easy run on Sunday and some sort of speed workout on Wednesday. It just so happens the moment I started increasing mileage and effort the weather changed dramatically and a lot of my workout have been in 85 to 95 degree heat with high dew points. I had one great Saturday two weeks ago where it was rainy and 66 degrees and ran 14 miles for the first time and that was great, felt good and was averaging 9 minute miles for most of the run at 163 bpm average.

Again I'm so glad to have continued on with training as it has been so helpful with my recovery and have continued to learn so much from this website. I miss my wife more and more every day but today was a huge step for me.

Jay