Pheidippides’s BodyBlog

I ran a 5K last Saturday, thinking and hoping I’d get a PR and maybe even break 20 minutes (after running a 5K in 20:33 about five weeks before).  I wasn’t even close.  By 8:30, when the race started, it was already almost 80 degrees, and with the bright sun and no shade it felt a lot warmer than that.  I vowed this time to start out a little slower, but I went even slower than expected and clocked 6:38 for the first mile.  I started a little too far back in the crowd and watched as the faster runners broke away and left me behind. I’m not sure it would have  made a big difference because I couldn’t have maintained a fast pace that day anyway.  After about a mile and a half I slowed way down and at times I think I was barely keeping the pace under 8 min/mile.  Finishing time was 22:38, more than two minutes slower than my previous 5K.  Even with that time I placed 26th out of 594, which shows I wasn’t the only one flagging in the heat.

So now the focus is squarely on the June 8 birthday triathlon, and I’ve stepped up my training.  I did a double swim/bike workout late last week, and biked again the evening before last following a light workout in the weight room.  I’ve also run twice since Saturday, both six mile runs.  This morning’s 6 miler was in 46:49, a 7:48 min/mile pace overall, with 4 miles at a brisk 7:43 followed by one mile in a challenging 6:54.

After the triathlon the plan is to slowly build mileage to 25 mpw or more by July 1 while minding the Achilles tendon, and after building a foundation by mid-July I’ll start on a 10K training program to try to run a 10K as close to 40 minutes as I can in mid to late fall.  It’s going to be a big stretch to do it.  If I reach my goal I’ll plan to shift to longer distances in 2009.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.