Training Updates and 5K Goal for Monday!

I'm doing the USATF MN series race on Memorial Day: the Brian Kraft 5K. I had a final easy 5.5 miler yesterday with Charlie to prepare:

Here's how my training's been going in the last 3 weeks since the Cinco DU Mayo Duathlon:

SWIM:

Nothing too dramatic here. I had a 7x200 swim (20 sec rest) where I kept all 7 under 3:00 for the first time in 2 years. I averaged 2:57.7/200 for that workout. I also had a 12x100 swim where I averaged 1:23/100.

Last Friday, I ate like CRAP, and then had the worst swim I've had in a LONG time the next morning. The plan was to do 3x500, but part way through #2, I decided to call it quits. My two 500s were 20-25 secs slower than I usually swim: 7:50 and 7:42. (Last month, I averaged 7:26 for 3x500.) I didn't do #3, but instead I did some 50s to try to get some speed back. LESSON LEARNED: stop eating crap.

Oh, I also did that workout of a ton of 50s that I used to really like. I hadn't done that in 2 years, and my shoulder was fine with it! I did 30x50 (see this link for workout details), and my 6 "fast" 50s were pretty consistent: they were all between 35.75 and 37.40. That swim felt good!

BIKE:

I didn't do anything too hard the week after the race. The next week, I did 3x5 mile intervals. I don't think that was a PR ride, but they were solid: averaged 22.0, 22.9, and 22.0 mph for the 3. Then I had a nice HILLY long ride this past Monday, and a PR ride on Thursday!

My PR ride was my "go to loop" that I like to ride for a 15+ mile "time trial" effort. (Here's a post from last month where I mentioned setting my recently broken PR.) Well, my PR on the loop was 20.6 mph 2 years ago, 21.0 mph in early April, 21.3 mph in late April, and now 21.4 mph this week. Nice.

RUN:

I've had pretty simple runs in the last 3 weeks: 3 easier runs between teaching classes, 2 runs with the stroller (1 with both boys and 1 with just Charlie), 2 early morning runs, and 1 run that ACTUALLY looked like "training." That 1 training run was a fartlek run this past week. I had thought that Wednesday would be good timing for a harder run, but then I realized that was just 5 days before my next race, and that wouldn't be smart. So fartleks are a good compromise: I get to add in SOME speed, but not so much that it kills my legs.

I did a simple version of a workout that Coach Jen Harrison had given me 7 years ago: hard running of random minutes with 50% of that as rest. So I did 3 mins hard, 90 sec easy, 2 mins hard, 1 min easy, 4 hard, 2 easy, 1 hard, 0:30 easy, and 5 hard. (When I did that with Coach Jen, she had me do that 2 times to equal 30 mins of hard running, but I just did that rotation once for 15 mins of hard running.) I kept all the hard running under 6:00 pace, with the final 5 minutes of running done at 5:39 pace. Nothing too fancy - just some speed before a race.


AS FAR AS MONDAY'S 5K... I really don't have much of a time goal. And yes, you're right: that's surprising for me. Sure, sure... I've thought about it. I should easily be sub-6 pace, which is 18:38. I hope to be sub-18, which is 5:47 pace (but that pace is starting to look a little scary). How much lower I could be below that is anyone's guess. And it's really not a big concern of mine. My big goal for this 5K is to go out "harder" than I usually do, and then try to hold on and suffer through the finish. I tend to start a bit conservative and then slowly build and pass people through the last mile or so. But at this race, I want to try going HARDER right from the gun. I won't have much to compare it to because I haven't raced an open 5K in a long time, but I just want to try it.

Check back for a race report to see how it went! Happy weekend!