My race a month ago was On The Waterfront 5k. I knew what time and what place I got in my age division. What I didn't know what place I got overall and how many people signed up. I got 176th place out of 290 finishers. Unfortunately, that's worse than half of the entrants. What I need to remember is that I was able to knock 20 some odd seconds off my time from last year. 20 seconds may not seem like a lot but it is when it comes to running.
I didn't run on Monday. I had a meeting at 6p that ran until 9p and I didn't buy my headlamp until today. Tomorrow is a tempo run. Good news is that I figured out my speed for my tempo and speedwork wrong.
I used the Runner's World online calculation tool. At the beginning of the year, I ran a 5k race in 25:42. I was like holy crap that's good! The next race I ran in 27 something, then a 29 something. So I thought either I was falling off my training or the race was a fluke. But I still used that time as the basis for my training. After talking to someone at the Waterfront 5k, he also said that his time was way faster than he normally runs by a minute. So he said that the course is short. Was I relieved to hear that. So the time that I should be using is a 27 minutes in a 5k as my basis for my training and what I should be able to finish a half marathon.
So in other words, even though I told St. Jude that I should finish the race at 2:30, I will hopefully finish at 2 hours. This is my 3rd goal anyway. 1st is to finish, 2nd is to get under 2:30 and 3rd will be under 2hr.
I was hoping to base my time off of a 10k that I planned on doing at the end of August but that race was cancelled. I have another 10k race at the end of October so hopefully that will let me know how I'm doing in terms of length and energy within the race atmosphere. That will only give me a month before my St. Jude race though.
But I know now that my pace for my training was all off; especially with my tempo and speed work runs. I was always dying on my speed work. I don't even do an 8 minute mile in a race! And I tried finding information about tempo runs; seems like I found differing opinions; one that it should be 10-15 seconds slower than your race pace and the another that it should be faster than your pace. So I'm confused. We'll see how I do on the tempo run tomorrow though.
I didn't run on Monday. I had a meeting at 6p that ran until 9p and I didn't buy my headlamp until today. Tomorrow is a tempo run. Good news is that I figured out my speed for my tempo and speedwork wrong.
I used the Runner's World online calculation tool. At the beginning of the year, I ran a 5k race in 25:42. I was like holy crap that's good! The next race I ran in 27 something, then a 29 something. So I thought either I was falling off my training or the race was a fluke. But I still used that time as the basis for my training. After talking to someone at the Waterfront 5k, he also said that his time was way faster than he normally runs by a minute. So he said that the course is short. Was I relieved to hear that. So the time that I should be using is a 27 minutes in a 5k as my basis for my training and what I should be able to finish a half marathon.
So in other words, even though I told St. Jude that I should finish the race at 2:30, I will hopefully finish at 2 hours. This is my 3rd goal anyway. 1st is to finish, 2nd is to get under 2:30 and 3rd will be under 2hr.
I was hoping to base my time off of a 10k that I planned on doing at the end of August but that race was cancelled. I have another 10k race at the end of October so hopefully that will let me know how I'm doing in terms of length and energy within the race atmosphere. That will only give me a month before my St. Jude race though.
But I know now that my pace for my training was all off; especially with my tempo and speed work runs. I was always dying on my speed work. I don't even do an 8 minute mile in a race! And I tried finding information about tempo runs; seems like I found differing opinions; one that it should be 10-15 seconds slower than your race pace and the another that it should be faster than your pace. So I'm confused. We'll see how I do on the tempo run tomorrow though.
