5K Prep Run

Thinking about the Hot August Night 5K coming up in August, I decided to try and run 3 miles at a 8 1/2 minute pace to see how I'm doing on my next goal. I want to run under 26 minutes in my next race, and I want to see how I've advanced. With the oppressive heat, I opted to run in the Y as well. A nice advantage, but I wanted to see just how fast I could go without worrying about overheating.

The good news is that tonight's run was my fastest 5K yet, by my timing.

The bad news is that I still have about 1 minute to shave off to make my goal.

Tonight's run was just under 27 minutes for 3.1 miles of running. I ran the first mile at 8 1/2 minutes, but the next two I ended up dropping off to a 9 minute pace and back up to 8 1/2 minute pace. Making the move to a 8 1/2 minute mile is like a wall for me. I have little trouble running 9 minute miles at a 4 or 5 mile run, but making the quicker pace is difficult to hold over the 5K distance.

I have a little time left to focus on running faster, so we'll see about making my next goal. This will be a good challenge, and I don't want to change it.