I had a 5K time trial on my schedule for today. This time trial has been giving me anxiety for the past two weeks, so I am glad it is finally over, but I was hoping it would go a little better.
If it would have been at a race, or if I would have had someone to pace me, I don’t think it would have been as scary. But with a baby, I was limited to when I could go, and there aren’t any upcoming 5Ks that would have been feasible to race. So it was inside on the treadmill.
I actually tried to do it this morning at the gym, but the childcare was full. At first I was secretly happy about this because that meant I was off the hook. . .for the time being. At the same time, I knew I would have to think about for the rest of the day. We went back home, did some things, Cullen took his nap, and then we came back to the gym this afternoon when the childcare opened back up.
While Cullen napped, I worked on making 70 cupcakes for an event at Skinny Raven tomorrow.
We are celebrating the 16th birthday of the Brooks Adrenaline–the #1 selling shoe for us. So if you are looking for something to do, you can come by and have one of the yummy cupcakes I made: chocolate, yellow cake, or red velvet. . . .your choice.
I started out with a 3 mile warm-up. I then did some stretching, striders, and went to the bathroom (just like I would in a race). Then it was ‘go’ time. I thought I could pull off a 19:00 5K, so I set the treadmill at a 6:07 pace. I started off feeling strong and confident I could maintain this pace. I turned on some up-beat music (the running station on Pandora) and focused on the task at hand.
Half-way through I was starting to feel tired, but I tried to motivate myself with the fact I was half done. But then mile 2 came, and my really heavy, labored breathing set in. (Much too soon!) I legitimately thought about stopping at this point–something I hardly ever think of doing. I dropped the pace down for a few tenths of a mile and had to bump it down again. That last mile went by so painfully slow. Each tenth of a mile seemed to take forever to get through. I bumped the pace back up for the last two-tenths of a mile, but I was spent by the time I was done. 19:18. . . .not what I was hoping for. This is 2 seconds faster than my PR set pre-baby. I know I should have been faster on the treadmill even.
I don’t know if there is a good explanation, or it was just a tough thing to do by myself. I do wonder if I need to go back to taking my iron supplement because when I was anemic, I really struggled with being able to catch my breath even on easy runs. I just thought this pace would come a little more easily.
I ended up doing 9.5 miles total. I was supposed to do 10, but the gals in the childcare said Cullen had been crying for about 10 minutes, so I stopped early. I don’t think he was used to me being gone that long.
It is what it is, and maybe I still have quite a bit of work to do. But I’m not giving up hope yet on this sub-3:00 marathon.
If you’ve been stressing about this test, just that additional stress could have made you much more tired than usual! Your performance on any given day isn’t an indicator of your overall fitness levels. Since you’ve been getting faster across the board, and feeling confident in your ability generally, that is a much better indicator of where you are.
Remember: your long run mile splits easily vary 6-10 seconds depending on the day and your mood. Assuming you were on the slow end today, that could be a 30 second swing in your speed over the 5k distance, putting you well under 19 minutes.
That’s a good reminder; thanks! 🙂
Yowza! I don’t know which would be harder, a 5K time trial on a track/road or on the treadmill. That’s a long time to go on the tread. But congrats, I still find it impressive!