I had a 5k on the calendar today, and I knew I had no chance at a PR. I spent all of September dealing with an aching calf and only ran 32 miles for the month. It feels good now, but I knew I had lost some fitness. So I had the idea to do this race as a progression run, with every mile faster than the last, trying to at least be in the ballpark of 5k pace. (Obviously I could have easily done it by starting at my easy pace and dropping from there!). As I was warming up I realized that I could better judge my efforts by setting my watch to kilometers, so I did.
Unfortunately, I kinda failed:
Km 1: 4:58 (8:00 pace)
Km 2: 4:56 (7:56 pace)
Km 3: 4:56 (7:56 pace)
Km 4: 5:10 (8:19 pace....ugh)
Km 5: 5:03 (8:08 pace)
remaining 0.01 km: 2.66 seconds
*grumble* I had nothing in mind for a finishing time, so there’s really no reason why I shouldn’t have been able to run each km faster than the previous one. But, I still think there were a lot of good points to take out of this: It was an interesting experiment. I had zero pain in my calf. The first 3 km were a pretty decent clip for my current fitness. The temperature and fall foliage were just lovely today. And it made me excited to get back to my normal mileage and bust out a solid, if not PR, 5k race in November!
PRs:
5k - 22:53 (May 2015)
10k - 50:00 (unofficial; part of 20k race, March 2015); 50:33 (official; July 2016)
HM - 1:48:40 (Apr. 2015)
I'm glad the calf cooperated for this run, and welcome back to racing!
Barking Mad To Run
Wow, if a 7 to 8 minute mile pace is failing...then I am REALLY failing, with my 11 - 12 minute miles....
Glad you had zero pain with the calf, that's always a good thing. Sorry things did not turn out the way you wanted but, as you said, very solid race for you. Congrats!
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Theodore Roosevelt
Glad to see it went well. That's not a bad fade so I would call this not a total loss!
Damaris
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That's not a bad fade so I would call this not a total loss!
Agreed, I run 1000's all the time and those are impressive splits and even more so with the fact that this was a race without recoveries.
What's up with the calf yo, is it the shoes?
Being in Canada I'm used to seeing splits in km, and I would not call that a big fade. Not at all actually. Congrats on the race.
Thank you Zelanie and Docket!!
Scotty, I didn't mean to sound like I thought I failed speedwise and I certainly wouldn't judge anybody else's speed as failing; sorry if it came across that way! I just wanted to pace myself in a smarter manner and *not* fade like I did.
LRB, I am not sure what the deal was, but I had this very generalized pain that started sort of "behind" my shin about mid-calf and wrapped "down and in" toward the inside of my ankle. It was hurting with every step when I ran or even walked in early Sept. It felt better by mid-month, but it came back with a vengeance when I tried to run 2 days in a row, so I sat out some more. It seems to be fine now though...?? From googling, my best guess is tibial anterior tendinitis.
Cyberic, lol, thank you for the kilometer perspective! I felt much, much more tired those last 2 kms and I don't think I was staying in the game mentally too well at that point. But maybe it wasn't so bad after all!