5k for Karen race recap

The 5k for Karen is a local, untime race that honors a woman that was actively involved in the community who passed away in 2008. It is a really fun event that occurs during the local Green Days festival, and it is right by my house!

Last year, this was the first race that I have ever run (besides cross country in high school). I went out too fast, walked at mile 2, and ran a time of about 27:42.

I really didn't know what to expect this year.....I have only been back running for about 3 weeks or so at any sort of decent mileage. I had a goal in mind of breaking 25 minutes sometime this summer, and just decided to see how I felt, and try to keep my pace at 8 min/mile or slower.

The course starts at the Johnston Library and runs around the neighborhood loop, out and back on NW 70th and then at mile 2 there is a super nasty hill. Since I live right in that neighborhood, I should probably be pretty good at running that hill, but I never make myself run it!

It was really raining hard when I was contemplating leaving my house. I finally left about 6:30 to get a little warm up in before the 7 pm start. By the time I got to the registration tent, it had slowed to a drizzle. It was perfect weather for running - no bright sun, a light drizzle, good temps.

I wanted to start out fast because I knew that hill would kick my ass and I would slow down on that mile. I lined up near the start and took off at a speedy pace. As everyone settled into their pace and the crowd thinned out, I found myself behind two high school girls. The first mile beeped off at a 7:18 mile! My fastest mile ran on the track last summer was 7:23. Boom!

I felt like the high school girls were a little slow, but kept reminding myself that I still had two more miles to go, and I had never run this fast before, so lets not blow this by trying to pass them. The second mile we were running about a 7:35 pace, but started to slow by the end of the mile. Mile 2 ticked off at 7:40.

Then came the hill. Ugh. The girls got a little ahead of me and it was a constant negotiation in my head - "I could walk a teensy section and still make my time goal", "Shut up and just run up this hill, it's almost over".

I kept jogging up the hill and by the time it flattened out, I was at an average pace of 8:27 for the third mile. I decided to try to catch the girls that had pulled away from me and picked up my speed as we started the final downhill stretch. As it leveled off for the last quarter mile, I could hear someone pounding away behind me, which motivated me to speed up even more! Mile 3 beeped off with a 7:55 mile time, and I was on the home stretch. There were all sorts of people I knew at the finish line - this lady worked for the same company I work for, and her husband still works there, so a lot of people from our office come out and support this event.

I flew into the finish shoot at a 6:31 pace for the last 0.12 miles!

This was not a timed race, but I actually remembered to hit stop on my Garmin and Garmin time said 23:37 - avg pace of 7:34 for 3.12 miles.

Not only did I beat last year's course time by over 4 minutes, I beat my 5k PR by 2 1/2 minutes! Now I guess I need to work on a new 5k goal - breaking 23 minutes.

I'm trying to run smart, since I'm coming off the calf/shin injury, and don't want to blow my speed or my mileage up too quickly. I have been at 25 miles the last two weeks, and I think I am going to hold there again this week, but start doing some speedwork. I like the Run Less Run Faster plan, except I am probably going to run more miles, so I am not sure I will do the long runs quite as fast as they prescribe. I will do the speed and tempo runs though.

Today's workout calls for 12 x 400m intervals @ ~ 7 min pace (90 sec rest in between). That sounds very scary. I will be doing it on a treadmill as it is about a zillion degrees here today plus humidity.