I edged a little closer but that nineteen minute barrier has proven insuperable. All the speed work, all the miles, all the stretching, and lunges, and long rides on the road bike... none of it has made any difference. I raced in the local Jingle Bell 5k on Saturday, and again I came up short.
Early this year I made a lot of progress. I ran my training miles and my tempo runs and my intervals, and mixed in miles on the bike, and I got a lot faster. On February 23, shortly after accepting CGB's challenge, I ran a 19:47. I then started training for a duathlon, and actually spend more effort on the bike than I did on the run. And even though I wan't focusing on the 5k, I still managed to take 35 seconds off my 5k time in less than two months. In April I ran a 19:12. I thought then that 18:59 was well within reach. If I could lose 35 seconds in two months without doing much short-distance speed work, surely I would drop 13 seconds more in a few weeks once I turned my attention directly to the 5k.
Um, no.
In the last eight months I have run, run, run, run, and run some more. And I have put a lot of effort into getting faster, running intervals and strides at least once each week, always pushing myself just as hard as I should and taking the appropriate amount of time to recover. But on Saturday, after eight months more of diligent training, much of it rather intense, I ran a 19:09 (unofficial time, according to my watch; they have not yet posted the official results). Fort those of you without a calculator, that's a whopping three seconds faster than my 5k time in April. That's about a .0001 second improvement for every 12 (or even 16) x 400 training session, a .000001 second improvement for every time I laced up the running shoes, and about a .0000000000000001 second improvement for every mile I have run.
In short, all my efforts have availed me naught.
On the bright side, I won my age group and got my picture in the local paper... twice. In the first photo, I am the second guy from the left in the front row, the one looking at his watch to make sure it's working.
The caption read, "The best runners were in the front row at the start of Saturday's event." That's almost as gratifying as it is amusing.
Early this year I made a lot of progress. I ran my training miles and my tempo runs and my intervals, and mixed in miles on the bike, and I got a lot faster. On February 23, shortly after accepting CGB's challenge, I ran a 19:47. I then started training for a duathlon, and actually spend more effort on the bike than I did on the run. And even though I wan't focusing on the 5k, I still managed to take 35 seconds off my 5k time in less than two months. In April I ran a 19:12. I thought then that 18:59 was well within reach. If I could lose 35 seconds in two months without doing much short-distance speed work, surely I would drop 13 seconds more in a few weeks once I turned my attention directly to the 5k.
Um, no.
In the last eight months I have run, run, run, run, and run some more. And I have put a lot of effort into getting faster, running intervals and strides at least once each week, always pushing myself just as hard as I should and taking the appropriate amount of time to recover. But on Saturday, after eight months more of diligent training, much of it rather intense, I ran a 19:09 (unofficial time, according to my watch; they have not yet posted the official results). Fort those of you without a calculator, that's a whopping three seconds faster than my 5k time in April. That's about a .0001 second improvement for every 12 (or even 16) x 400 training session, a .000001 second improvement for every time I laced up the running shoes, and about a .0000000000000001 second improvement for every mile I have run.
In short, all my efforts have availed me naught.
On the bright side, I won my age group and got my picture in the local paper... twice. In the first photo, I am the second guy from the left in the front row, the one looking at his watch to make sure it's working.
The caption read, "The best runners were in the front row at the start of Saturday's event." That's almost as gratifying as it is amusing.
And here I am at the finish (white shirt, grey shorts, black gloves), losing to a girl. (The girl, it turns out, is this year's Alabama high school cross country state champion).
No comments:
Post a Comment