Horrible Long Run and Thoughts on an Upcoming 5000 Meters

Yesterday’s run was just the worst. I had 2 free hours at 9:00 a.m., so I thought I’d do my long run. I just never felt good. I went easy for 2 miles, and then figured I’d pick it up for the middle 6, as I’ve been doing for many months on my long runs. But I wanted to die after 2 slightly faster miles, and my times were horrible. I think the heat got to me - it was mid-40s for my stroller run with Charlie last week, and it wasn’t HOT yesterday, but it was nearly 70. I do NOT do well once it gets warmer.

As I posted about on Monday, I took Charlie on my last long run last week, and we ran the middle 6 miles at 6:12 pace and felt great! Yesterday, I could only eek out 4 miles before letting up, and they were at 6:32 pace, withOUT the stroller. Yikes.

This was NOT a confidence boosting run going into the track meet this weekend!

Changing post-run in my son’s elementary school’s locker room. I was there because
my youngest has “Kinder Camp” this week as he’ll be a kindergartener next year!

I’m planning on running the 5000 at the meet this weekend. I’ve done a few 5000s on an indoor 200 meter track, but never on an outdoor 400 meter track. Last year, I did a 5K where I didn’t look at my watch at all, and I’m thinking about doing the opposite at this race. I have the chance to “check in” every 400 meters, so I might take my 400 meter splits. (If that race starts to feel like this last run, then I might stop doing that. It could get real depressing real fast.) Before yesterday’s run, I was thinking a good goal would be to run 85 second laps. I’d run the first half-lap in about 42 seconds (possibly), and then if the final 12 laps could average 85 seconds, I’d finish in 17:42.

It’s hard to wrap my mind around this. I feel like I could be a bit faster than 17:42 on a nice flat track, but yet running 3.1 miles at 85 seconds/lap sounds impossible. If it’s a little warm, it might truly be impossible. If it cools down a bit, then that could be a good goal. But I’m also not a good “track runner,” so I’ll need to work on that for those 12.5 laps.

And if it’s too hot and gross out there, I might just throw in the towel and do the 1500 instead. Who knows. It will just be time to suffer this weekend!