Saturday night was my second attempt at the 5k in three
weeks. I hoped it would be a repeat of two years ago: disappointed by a less
than stellar Firecracker 5K, I came back for revenge and—bolstered by
the presence of my teammates—set a PR on the darkening Crystal City streets.
Given how slow my 5k PR is compared to my longer distance
PRs, it shouldn’t be difficult to break. I’m not in prime shape now, but my PR
was set at this same midsummer, off-peak race. I wasn’t in prime shape then
either, so I couldn’t use that as an excuse. Coach had said a 5:55 first mile
would feel comfortable. I wasn’t quite confident that comfortable would be the
appropriate adjective, but it sounded reasonable and was PR pace, so I was game.
I hit the one mile marker at exactly 5:55, and it did feel comfortable. Running a second mile at 5:55 would certainly not be as easy (or comfortable), but I felt good and I had teammates both at my side and just ahead to gage off of. As we hit the turn-around, I felt like I could be slowing, but I seemed to be improving, or at least maintaining, my place in the field. I figured I was running close to 6:00 mile pace, which would still be good enough for a PR. But as I passed the two mile marker, I realized I had slowed much more than that. Crap, crap, crap. I had to get it back in the last mile. I couldn’t pull a Classic Teal and give up. And it didn’t seem like I was. The effort felt different than the Firecracker race; I didn’t feel like I was unraveling, it felt like a PR effort. Maybe I hadn’t reclaimed 5:55 pace, but I was churning along, not throwing in the towel. K caught up to me, and having her there gave me a needed push.
I didn’t have a great sense of where the finish line was
(the course was new), but I thought I could identify one of the intersections
close enough to start pushing. The problem was I was mistaken, started picking
it up, and realized too late we had not yet passed the aforementioned
intersection. Oh well, at least I tricked myself into running faster for
longer. Like last time, I struggled to see the finish line in the dark
until we were pretty close. I kicked as best as possible, but had no clue what
the time was; the clock was blinking nonsensical numbers. I didn’t know how I’d
done until I had walked away, caught my breath, and finally peaked at my watch.
18:56. What? Five seconds slower than my PR. I was pissed. The effort felt like I earned a
better time than that. I knew that I had slowed in the second mile but it
didn’t dawn on me that instead of making up for it, I had actually continued to
slip.
This morning I looked up the official results, which shows
me six seconds slower than my watch time. (It also shows equivalent gun and
chip times, even though I started a couple seconds back.) I thought I
finished closer to K, but apparently not. Officially I didn’t even break 19
minutes. This just keeps getting worse and worse.
Officially or not, my time was slower than 2012 when I had just joined the
team. Have I not improved in two years? (Actually—although I currently feel
like wallowing in this recent failure—the reality is I have improved at every
distance except the 5k. Sadly, the only other distance where my improvement was
almost negligible was the marathon, which, of course, is the one that matters
most to me.)
The truth is I don’t really care about 5ks. I care about what this
means for my other races and bigger goals. To hit my September goal, I need to
run the same pace as Saturday for 13.1 miles—i.e. ten miles further. To hit my
October goal, I need to run faster
for longer (10 miles). To hit my
December goal, I need the confidence gained from nailing the other two. I know it
is the beginning of the season and real training hasn’t begun, but is the real
training enough to give me an extra 10 miles at that pace? Enough to get me to
go ten miles at a pace I can currently (maybe) hold for only two?
Let’s hope so.
Dream big (even when results tell you otherwise),
Teal