5K Goal

One of my goals for this year was to run under 18 minutes for the 5K. Last year I didn’t come close to my goal of breaking 17 minutes. My closest effort was 17:45 on a fairly flat course.

So, this year I decided that it wasn’t likely that I was going to get much faster—especially since my main focus was going to be training for the Twin Cities Marathon. 

I have, however, been doing interval workouts geared toward a sub-18 minute 5K, and it was starting to look like those workouts are paying off. We have a local 5K called “parkrun,” a free weekly timed 5K. I knew my first 5K a week from this a month ago wasn’t going to be under 18:00, but I wanted to see where I was at. I ended up running an 18:41, but I was also running by myself for almost the entire race, so I thought I could have gone faster if I’d been racing someone else.

A couple weeks ago my only goal was to improve from the previous week, chipping away at breaking 18 minutes. That race there was a runner in front whom I only saw for the first mile or so. He was quite a ways in front, and ended up almost setting the course record,

I did have someone running with me, however. He ran right behind me for the entire race, and though it would have been helpful if he would have taken the lead for a while so I could draft, it was still motivating knowing that someone was running right behind me, presumably to try and beat me at the end.

After having him behind me for two miles, the competitive side of me started strategizing. I decided to slowly speed up until there was a quarter mile left, and then go as fast as I could to the finish. 

The quarter mile mark comes right after going up and down the biggest hill on the course, and I didn’t have a lot left when we hit the hill. Still, I was able to pick it up and finish relatively fast, beating the guy behind me by four seconds. My time was 18:10–a big improvement from the previous week.

Tomorrow I’m going to be running a flatter course with far fewer turns than the parkrun, so I’m hoping I can break 18 minutes. I’m not overly optimistic, however, as I’ve cut back my running pretty significantly because of injuries. Thankfully my ankle hasn’t been bothering me at all, and my quad strain feels a little better. 

So, wish me luck for tomorrow—I’ll need it.