Another 5K, Another Disappointing Time

There are a few things I discovered since my last post: my strength lies in my speed; endurance is my weakness; and, perhaps the most important, I am mentally weak.

The last race I did, a 5k, kept my streak alive. Another race in 19:59. Very disappointing considering I ran the same race in 2011 in 19:52 and in 2009 in 19:38. I have since picked this race and myself apart, not quite understanding where things went wrong.  Leading up to the race I had been feeling great, consistently hitting 40-mile weeks, one day off, two hard workouts a week, stretching, and so on. The day of the race I was positive.. confident that I could run around 19:30. Plus my fiancé brought his bike and planned to ride along side me, pushing me through the last half of the race. I was ready. The gun went off. I went through the first mile in 6:20. Perfect. That was the time I was shooting for. About a mile and a half into the race I started to feel “it” and by “it” I mean fatigue, pain, lungs burning.. I start to panic and look for the 2-mile marker. Unfortunately, it’s way off in the distance. At this point my fiancé pulls up, parallel to the boardwalk on his bike and cheers for me, shouting words of encouragement. I refocus and start picking off a few runners in front of me. I go through the second mile in 6:25. That was not the plan. I try to speed up and push through the last mile but I’m in a lot of pain and want to stop and walk. Negative thoughts creep in. I tend to ask myself the same questions in every race: Why do I do this to myself? Do other runners experience this much pain? The next female runner is quite a distance back, should I slow down?

I spot the finish line. My fiancé reads the clock out loud. 19:03. I start to do the calculations in my head and realize that I won’t hit my goal of 19:30. He tells me I need to sprint if I want to break 20 minutes. So I give it all I have and cross the line at exactly 19:59. I’m physically exhausted but glad to have finished and always grateful to cross the line with a 19:XX on the clock. However, hours after this race I felt frustrated, annoyed and let down.

Whatever I was doing, in terms of training was not translating into faster times in races. I express to my coach that I want to switch things up. Focus on shorter-distance training. Instead of doing mile repeats on the track at 6:15 pace, I want to do 400 meter repeats at 5:20 pace. Quicker pace over a shorter distance with less recovery. And this is exactly what I’ve been doing for the past 3 weeks.

Tomorrow I race 1-mile on the track. Last year I ran it in 5 minutes and 56 seconds. My goal for tomorrow is to break 5:50. Given the type of workouts I’ve been doing I should be able to run in the low 5:40s.

Keeping my fingers crossed.