Crystal Run 5k

 After a few 'getting to know you' months with my coach, we are currently into a build phase working on stressing and improving my threshold and strength. Following the half in march, I have very quickly started to incorporate lots of sub-threshold and threshold intervals on both the bike and the run. So a low-key, flat, friendly 5k seemed a perfect check-in on my progress, as well as a way to get out a race, no pressure, no start corrals, no expo, etc.

I didn't really base my goal of sub-7 pace on anything concrete. In fact, I haven't seen a 6:-- in training or racing in well over a year. But I wanted the goal to be to make it hurt, then make it hurt some more, then hold on until the end. Mission accomplished.

21:37 (6:58 pace)

I ran from home to the start which is exactly 2 miles, and was happy to get a nice long warm up in. My body wasn't feeling as good as it had earlier in the week, but things loosened up during warm up. Being the type-A person that I am, I got to the start a good 45-50 minutes before the 6:30pm start, so I tried to keep moving, but didn't want to put too many more miles on my legs. I jogged away from the start, visited a clean hotel bathroom, did some drills away from the crowds to get my heart rate up and muscles twitching, and still had a good 15 minutes until the start. I ran into Victoria and her bf, and stood around trying to stretch and keep moving. Despite all this warm up and moving, I still found myself on the starting line with a HR well under 100. Not ideal.


I lined myself up front and center (well, about 3 super skinny guys back) - right next to the girl in aviators and a backpack. Gun went off (actaully, there was no gun, there was a simple 'ready, set, GO!') and I tried to settle into a uncomfortably-hard pace. There were a few girls right around that I latched myself onto and tried to zone out. I stayed with the small group I found for about 2ish miles, when they started to pull away. I had lapped my watch at mile 1 and wish I hadn't looked at the split (a quick glace had revealed a 6:3-). I focused on keeping close to the girls around me, but they slowly pulled away. I knew I was slowing down, but focused on turnover and strength in my legs. Strong push offs and leaning forward. Don't sit into my hips, use your arms.

Mile 2 - Thanks Victoria! Focusing on my form and sticking to that girl. I didn't

There was some wind and some minor ups and downs in the last 2 miles. I mentally fought to keep my HR up and not dial in the pace, which I have a tendency to do. I tried to look forward and choose someone to catch up to - focused on finding the Mile 3 marker. I was relieved after the mile 3 split to see it had stayed consistent with Mile 2. There wasn't really any girls in front of me coming into the finish, but I heard someone cheer 'let's go girls, finish strong', so I knew there must be a girl behind. I really focused on accelerating into the finish line and not getting passed, although my Garmin pace does not reflect that at all. I am going to tell myself that my pace got caught up in the buildings the last .08-.1 of the race, bc my HR was high and for sure didn't slow down.

Splits:
(I took splits vs. autolap, which is why the miles are a bit long and the splits vs. pace are a bit off).

This is from Garmin - Official results 21:37.

Overall, I am SUPER happy with the results. Sure, I wish all my mile splits were actually sub-7, but I am proud that miles 2 and 3 were so consistent.  The HR data is very interesting, as it really is only a few beats higher than my average from the half a few weeks ago - I am not really sure what that means. I didn't feel stressed or out of breath at my half marathon HR, but this HR was definitely a 'I wanna puke' at the end type of effort. I do wish I could run this course again, but due to travel and weddings and life, this was the only race of the series I can do.

This will probably be the last running race until the fall, so I'm glad to get a PR and some good mental momentum as I slow down and start logging miles and miles of Z2.