Dallas Running Club Independence Day 5K
7/2/16

Goals

A: Sub-23 time
B: Win my age group
C: PR (under 25:14)

Training

I didn’t do any 5K specific training. I’m still just base-building for a fall half plan, but since I’ve had injury issues, I was running inside on the treadmill and had stripped out the little speedwork there is in the plan. In June, I did weeks of 22, 25, 28, and 30 miles. This week so far, I’d done 13 miles, all outside. I took Friday off of running to try to rest a little.

Strategy

This was the first race where I can honestly say that I was planning on going out as fast as possible and just holding on, which is the generally prescribed strategy for 5Ks. Specifically, since I was aiming for a sub-23 time, I wanted to do even splits at a 7:20 pace. 7:24 would be a perfect 23:00 time, so I wanted to try to build in a small buffer just in case something went wonky.

Pre-race

I woke up at about 5:45 because the dog needed to go out. After that, I got dressed and started drinking water, knowing today was going to be hot. I finished about 20 oz before I headed out the door at 6:35. It’s about a 20 minute drive to White Rock Lake from where I live, and I ended up getting there around 7:00. It wasn’t too hot right then, but over the next hour, it definitely heated up. I put on some sunscreen and walked to grab my bib. I continued drinking water and ate a pack of sport beans over the next 30 minutes while I waited to start warming up. I met my friend and we headed out on a one mile warmup at about 7:45. We got back to the start line at 7:55, I did some dynamic stretching and then we lined up. We were probably in the third row back from the front and there were some teenagers that looked like they planned on going sub-20 that day. It was about 82º at the start of the race.

Race

Mile 1 – 7:08

I have to admit, I let myself get pulled a little. My goal pace was 7:20 for even splits, but when I set off with the fast folks, I went out way too fast. I spent a significant part of the first mile in the 6:XXs. I believe this would come back to bite me later. This first mile felt pretty good. I haven’t run fast in almost a month, so it felt good to break the legs out a little. My heart rate was definitely elevated at a max of 186 this first mile, but I wasn’t feeling it too much. The heat hadn’t gotten to me either because we had pretty decent tree cover for the first part of this mile.

Mile 2 – 7:16

My pacing mistake in the first mile started to affect me about halfway through the second mile. My heart rate was reaching 190 and most of this mile was unshaded, so I was sweating profusely at this point. My friend had set off at a sub-7 pace but quickly slowed in the second mile, so he ended up being pretty near me at the turnaround. I was still hanging on at 7:10ish paces for most of the mile and was trying to slow down a little to save energy for the third mile, but ended up still being ahead of my goal pace.

Mile 3 – 7:26

So this is where it really started sucking. My heart rate never went below 190 for the rest of the race. It was sunnier than at the start, and I was breathing really hard. Any mental boost I’d gotten at the turnaround point was gone by now, and it was just a sufferfest from the end of the second mile through the middle of the third. I was trying to balance the fatigue that was setting in with the goals I was trying to hit. I started negotiating with myself – okay, you’re not going to make 23:00 at the point, so you should just slow down. You’re still probably going to get the age group win. At that point, I’d slow down to the 7:20s-7:30s and get my heart rate and breathing under control and then naturally speed up again. The even splits that the pros are throwing down on every lap in the 5000m in Eugene this week put me to shame. There was a woman in front of me wearing the same ugly purple Newtons that I was that I was just trying to hang on with. I wasn’t sure, but I thought she might have been an overall female finisher, and I knew that if that were the case, I was definitely taking the age group win.

When I reached the marker signaling that I was half a mile away from the finish, I slowed down just a little bit. I don’t know if I meant to or not, but it was almost me catching my breath before I turned it back on. At 2.7 miles, I finally started getting back to pace. With about .1 mile left, I started my kick. I didn’t think I had anything left to kick with, but my fellow ugly purple shoe runner managed to start a kick, and I figured I’d try too. Given an extra 100 or so meters, I’d’ve probably been able to overtake her, but I don’t know that I really had another 100m in me. As I rounded the corner to see the clock, I saw a 9 as the last digit and thought I was finished, but when I got closer, I saw that it had been a :39, and that I could still make a sub-23 time. I ended up with a 22:51!

Post-race

Immediately after the race, I felt panicked, like my body was unsure of why it just had to work so hard just then, and why I’d just stopped. I also thought I was going to collapse for about five seconds. I stumbled over to the water and got like three cups and downed them. After about an hour, they finally announced the times and winners and I found out that not only had I won the age group, but I had gotten fifth female overall, which is my best showing at a race yet.

Since I’ll be moving out of the age group in September and the race in August is a relay, this is the last chance I had at getting another age group win. I’m really happy to have seen the progress I’ve made in the last two years. The first time I ran this race in 2014, I clocked in with a 30:01. I’ve improved so much since then, and it’s been amazing. I don’t expect to drop significant amounts of time off my 5K PR for much longer; I’ll probably get one last big PR this fall or next spring as it cools off, but I expect it’ll be far more incremental from there on out. I’d be pleased as punch to be wrong, but I’m mentally preparing now to accept bigger challenges to getting faster.