day 94

Last 5K for a while! I guess I ran/jogged about 30 min altogether, ambled over and trotted around a bit, then ran the 5K in 23:20. But it was a bit over 5K--there are km and 1/2 km spray-painted markers on the path next to the road that had been measured by a measuring wheel, very accurate, and so I'd figured out roughly where the turn around would be and we were a bit beyond that. Just checked on mapmyrun and, yeah, at least (being conservative) 1.59 miles out and back. But it turned out that they had the road blocked off so we ran on that which was a nice surprise! I was expecting to be dodging rollerbladers and dogs on the path. no complaints. it was a fun, inexpensive, and relaxed race...with a 20-odd buck race these days, I'm not expecting accurate course measurements or timing chips or whatever. Just block the road and let us run on it!

I had negative thoughts during the race, of course, but I tried to keep sucking in air and keeping my shoulders relaxed and my tempo up and it felt like a more solid effort overall than last time. I think I accepted the discomfort more. I'd seeded myself poorly and had to weave a lot at first, and then I tried to pin myself onto a certain woman and didn't catch up to her, but I passed others later on. But this little kid blew by me somewhere around 3-4 K! I hope he keeps up running. Then, close to the finish, some guy passed me--I'd passed him earlier and was kind of surprised that he wasn't breathing very hard then...anyway, he caught up to the guy ahead of me and they had a photo finish sprint. So now I'm disappointed that I didn't pick it up more at the very end. The last couple of km, I felt I was picking it up because I could feel more energy tapped and I passed a few people there, and I was happy with that, but the final 100m or so wasn't as strong as it had been the race before. I picked it up, of course, but what if I'd tried even more? I can't stop kicking myself! It would have hurt more but maybe I would have learnt something. As it was, I was alone when I crossed and it was kind of boring. I feel like I should have tapped into an inner terrier or something--gone for it. It wouldn't have killed me! At the very least, I would have known what it would have felt like. Where's that curiosity when I need it?

I didn't warm up as much as the races before and that didn't seem to matter...I still feel sort of dull so I guess a warm up doesn't really help beyond a certain point. This season, I haven't done much VO2 max work, aside from the races, and barely any sprinting besides the very short hill sprints I did earlier on, so I'm not totally put together yet. It'll come.

There's been something that's been bugging me about these 5K races--all three of them have been similar, out and backs....I didn't figure out where the turn around point was beforehand the first two times, and it was a bit further than I'd expected this time, so maybe that has something to do with it...it seems that I concentrate so much on it and then it's the long stretch back (feels so long) and it's lonely and deserted. Not really! But at that point people are pretty spread out and it's disconcerting somehow. I still can't put my finger on it.

Anyway, my 5K experiment is done!

April 18, Race 1: 7:24/mile
April 25, Race 2: 7:22/mile
April 30, Race 3: 7:18-7:30/mile, lol (7:20 if 1.59 miles out and back)

So, not too shabby! I'm tired, though. I would really like to get under 7:00/mile this year but I've got a lot of catching up still; I'm increasing mileage (will taper a bit for NCM and Emilie's run, though) so I'm not sure I'll be doing shorter intervals/sprints/jumps/whatever until after Emilie's run. I'll continue to do VO2 max intervals for the next 6 weeks, I think.

I might jog this evening, will see. We will likely do a long run tomorrow. Meanwhile, I should phone the doctor and find out Monday's iron blood test results.