Today we met at the SJ park to run our 5k's--only two this time. It felt a little like a vacation after we ran four the last two times we've done this. My goal going in--actually my goal all summer--has been to hit in the 22 minute range on these 5ks. Just some history: last winter, when I think I was at my all time low with running, I barely made it under 30 minutes on one of these. I wanted to blame the cold and the snow on the ground, but I knew it went deeper than that, so to speak. I knew I had some problems that needed to be corrected if I ever wanted to run these 5K's well again. Eventually some things got taken care of, the most important being my thyroid, and the times came down. However, I still was not able to hit that magical 22 number despite what I thought were my best efforts. My best time before today was 23:09 which I did in June. Lately, all the times have been in the 23 to 25 minute range. Today we started south, and I tried to keep things relaxed and fairly comfortable, focusing on keeping my form good. I ran that in 23:30. Good, but still not where I wanted to be. The second we ran north, and this time I ran with Nancy R. the entire way. I think having her by me kept me going strong, and, what do you know, I finally made it into the 22 range, 22:31 to be precise. Nice to reach a goal. The best part is I didn't feel totally wiped out at the end, I felt like if I had to, I could have done two more 5K's. However, I'm glad I didn't have to. Tapering is nice. |