Day 25: Turning on the Afterburners

I think I've found a new sub-goal. A meta-goal, if you will.

I think I'd like to get faster. More specifically, I think I'd like to get good at hustling through 5ks.

In my gait analysis session Halima (the wicked-awesome running guru) told me "marathons aren't really for everyone; a lot of people would be better off running shorter races." And you know, I'm thinking she's right.

Sure, I want to develop a huge cardio base. But I don't particularly want to deal with the wear that marathon training seems to have on your body. Knees, hips, feet—if I can get a good workout running shorter races and still feel on top of my game, then I'd like to do that.

And, I'd like to do that faster.

This is all really coming about due to a sort of challenge thrown down by our buddy @MapleJen, who is running the La Jolla 5k with us. She's shooting for a sub-30:00 time. And while I was happy to plug away and come in at around 33:00, it got me thinking. It got my competitive juices flowing.

So today I went out with the goal of opening it up, pushing it and seeing just how fast I could knock 5k out.

I increased my stride rate right out of the gate and basically kept the hammer down the whole time. There was a stiff headwind at Crissy Field on the way out, and that kicked my ass a little, but that turned into a tailwind on the way back so I can't claim any great disadvantage—especially on such a short run.

My finishing time was 30:22. That's (unofficially) my fastest 5k ever. Honestly, I feel pretty good about it.

While I was doing it I was so busy focusing on pushing myself that I didn't even think about quitting, which I am plagued with doing. And yes, 5k is a short distance, but I have quit during a short run before.

So, instead of having the goal of "completing" X distance when I run (and possible not toughing out the distance for whatever reason), my new goal is to do X distance in a specific time. If I am focusing on time, I'll be too busy to be thinking about quitting.

I'm gonna have to get some fartleks in before the La Jolla 5k in the hopes of shaving those 22 seconds off my 5k time. After that, I'm gonna try to crank down my 5k times minute by minute.

It'll be cool.