Summer Training: By The Numbers

If you've been able to follow along through my sporadic posting this summer, you already know decided to take a few months to get faster at shorter distance racing. In the past, my only goal for 5Ks was to hit the gas and hold on as long as I could. It was miserable and while I still occasionally ran a PR, I never could get rid of the alarm bells in my head telling me that I was going to, quite literally, die if I didn't slow down. This training block was about trying to quiet that voice just a little through exposure therapy and getting used to the pain. I can definitively say that I have achieved that.

Pain snarl en route to a new PR

Let's start at the beginning. What was my PR going into this season? I admit that many of my previous bests have been on courses of questionable length. Around here, there are just two certified courses. Others that have not been certified either measure long (3.25) or short (3.09). For purposes here, I'm going to consider my best time to be one that Garmin measured at least 3.11 miles. In that case, my best was 22:10 at the 2016 Fortuna Rodeo, which also happens to be the only local certified course I've ever run.

Speed Workouts
When I train for a summer ultra, speed work all but disappears. I replace fast runs with hilly ones. When approaching 5K training I kept two speed workouts a week, one was some sort of interval, either on a track running 1,000m repeats or on the road with fartlek runs. The second workout was either a progression run down to 5K pace or a tempo run at 5-10K pace. Poison oak threw a bit of a wrench into this and I missed a solid two weeks of workouts in June.

Long Run Mileage

Since I no longer had a need for weekly twenty milers in June and July, I limited my long runs to 15 miles. Most sat in the 10-12 mile range, with a few exceptions to go play in the woods with my trail friends. I made sure each run had a purpose so if 20 miles on a Tuesday didn't make sense, I ran part of the run with friends and bailed out on the remainder.

Monthly Mileage

As a result of the shorter long runs, my overall mileage was greatly reduced. At first, my ego got in the way and it was hard to see the lower numbers, but once I noticed an increase in my overall pace, I didn't mind as much. In fact, I was surprised to notice I enjoyed that extra spring in my step. My moderate effort runs shifted from about an 8:30/mi pace to 8:10/mi pace.

Racing History

My local area has three 5K races each summer. Hammond Hill is the one with the 150 ft. dirt hill in it; Arcata Marsh is the local cross country course, and Fortuna Rodeo is the flat, fast certified course.  When setting my goals for the summer, I used my racing history at each event to help me decide at which pace to start. For example, I haven't been able to better my time from Hammond Hill to Arcata Marsh. This year, I assumed I could break 22 minutes, but wasn't at all expecting a PR. Then from there, I thought it reasonable to assume I could drop another forty seconds at Fortuna Rodeo. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but it's cool how consistent this formula seems to be for me.

Performance Analysis
When I first started the season, my target was the low 20 minute range. Since I have no specific short distance training to base this goal off of, it was essentially a guess.

It was my plan to break 21 minutes at the first 5K of the season, on Father's Day, but that wasn't meant to be. I started to wonder if this summertime goal was a mistake. Part of that is due to the poison oak rash (which was oozing like crazy on that first race morning) and the other was the weather. Consolation prize: a big fat trophy. :)

Arcata Marsh was a surprise. I didn't think I'd PR there at all. There has only been one other year where my trail PR was faster than my road one and that was years ago during a period of huge improvement when I ran faster at each and every race I ran.

The effort at Fortuna Rodeo was definitely there. My training had indicated something in the 20:40s, so I wasn't too far off there with my 20:53. I'm still struggling to iron out my pacing and not have the second mile take twenty seconds longer than the other two, but I got really good at ignoring that voice in my head telling me to slow down. I didn't give up, it was agony, and I was sore for days and days afterward. An additional bonus was being the overall female champion. That was pretty awesome. Dropping almost eighty seconds from my PR didn't suck either. :)

My first Fortuna Rodeo 5K in 2013: 22:25

Now what?
My next target is a half marathon on September 17th. After a brief pause in formal training in late July, I began training for The Rogue Run. Matt found a training plan for the half whose first six weeks looked a lot like my 5K training, so it's been a pretty smooth transition so far. There have been two rough workouts where I have had to modify the goal, but those have been due to wildfire smoke angering my asthma. Things could certainly be worse.