Preparing for an 8K

I’m gearing up run an 8K (5M) event in a couple of weeks and I’m finding the process to be so much different than the training I’ve gone through for a HM or a marathon. Strictly speaking, a 5M race is like a 10K, it’s all about speed and endurance, but mostly speed. The trick is to be able to sustain the speed for entire distance. Assuming that I had some speed, I would be very serious about my training, but since I don’t I’m focused on meeting or beating an arbitrary goal that I’ve set, which is to finish in 44 minutes or less (very possible), with a stretch goal of 40 minutes (not likely). Anything in between will be a home run for me.

I’m pretty comfortable running 5 miles, so the distance is not an issue. What will be my challenge will be to do so quicker than usual. My 5 miles runs have ranged from as much as 48 minutes to just under 43.  

One of my many challenges has been my first mile: it seems to always be my “shake out” mile and almost always is close to a 10 min/mile pace. That first mile is where my body works out all of its kinks and my joints loosen up and my muscles warm up and so on... That slow start strategy has worked fine for HM and marathon events, but obviously not applicable to short distance events. Totally different situation for me.

The times that I’ve run a 5 mile route better than 44 minutes have all been when I’ve been able to do that first mile in the low 9 min/mile range. After that first mile I’ve been pretty good at paring down the next 4 splits, but when that first mile is 10 min/mile, wow, that’s a lot of time to win back. And I have not been able to pin down why I was able to run that first mile faster on those days.

Typical splits for 5 mile run might be:

Mile 1: 10 min

Mile 2: 9:30

Mile 3: 8:50

Mile 4: 8:30

Mile 5: 8:00

Which approaches a reasonable ~44:45 total time…  which is just "ok" …. On good days I can do the 4th mile at closer to 8:00 and the last mile under 8:00.

Obviously, if I can get through each of those first two miles at closer to a 9 min/mile pace I could be reaching into a 43:xx time…”.  So I’m working on that by warming up more prior to my 5-6 mile runs, and we’ll see what happens. On the day of the race I will probably jog a mile or so before the start to make sure that I'm loose and ready to run those first miles a little faster. I'm not worried about the distance - I'm pretty confident about my endurance - I'm more worried about sustaining the speed.

In the meantime, I managed to do something weird to my foot while doing speed intervals. Felt good running, but afterwards the top of my left foot is very sore and it hurts to walk. I skipped a running day, but did a slow 3 miles today. It hurts now, but not as bad as yesterday. Hmmm. What a pain in the ass…

The event is on May 10. It should be interesting!