Turkey Trot and Stuff(ing)

I'm in training again - this time for a 5k. It seems kind of silly to train for a 5K, but it probably doesn't matter since I've been interpreting the word "train" rather loosely. I don't usually run once tri season is over, so the fact that I'm running at all these days is huge.

The Race: The ColderBolder. Advertised as "A really cool 5K without any people that are faster than you." The deal is they invite all qualifying finishers of the BolderBoulder to participate in a 5K against only people who finished the 10K within 2 minutes of them. My BB time last year was 60:11, so I was invited to participate in the 60:00-61:59 Invite Race - the last (but not least!) of the many waves of 5K races. The motivating factor is that you have a theoretical chance of winning.

Training: I thought training for the ColderBolder (and the chance at a podium finish) would accomplish two things: (1) motivate me to run, period, and (2) motivate me to do more speed work. I signed up for a free training program on active.com, which sends me an email everyday telling me what sort of training I should do. So each morning, I check my email and if it's convenient and I feel like running, I do the suggested work-out. (You can tell how committed I am to this!) On the whole I've been averaging two days of running a week and have done a couple of speed work sessions. About two days a week, the active.com email suggests 30 minutes of "low" cross-training. Since I really savor my gym time during the winter, most of my "low" 30 minutes of cross-training work-outs ended up being two hours of fairly intense group exercise classes. Often, this left me sore and not feeling up to my suggested run the next day. Maybe, I'm just not meant to be a winter-runner. :)

Goal: Based on my BB time, in theory I would finish the 5K in just under 29 minutes, at a pace of 9:19/mi. But, as they say, IN THEORY, communism works. I'm not in as good running shape now as I was then, so running at that pace is probably an unrealistic goal. I've let go of the hope that I will get to stand on the podium. As per usual, I'm just going to go out there and try to do my best. I'd love to run a 9:30/mi, but I think I'll be happy with anything sub-10:00/mi.


Turkey Trot: I ran the Turkey Trot 4-miler this morning. I thought of it as a pre-race race or a practice tempo run before the "big" day (Saturday, December 5th). It was actually pretty fun to see so many runners and families out there - many wearing turkey headdresses and other T-Day inspired swag. My Garmin ran out of batteries at the starting line so I ran the whole race "caveman-style." It was probably good for me to just run without worrying about my pace or time. I finished in 40:33 (10:08/mi) - slower than I was hoping for, but still decent. It wasn't great racing conditions either (lots of bobbing and weaving around walkers, joggers, and strollers). I imagine I'll do much better next weekend, as being surrounded by fast runners usually makes me run faster.

It's so weird, but I find the shorter distances much more challenging. During most of mile-3, the little voice in my head kept saying "I hate running" over and over. It's kind of the watched-kettle-never-boils phenomenon. When I know the race won't take me much time, it feels like it is taking forever! Today it seemed like I was running for a very long time before finally passing the one-mile marker. But, when I did the Rocky Mountain Half-Marathon last summer, I knew that I would be out running for awhile and each mile seemed to tick by so quickly, one after the other.

After the ColderBolder next weekend, no more running until February! Now, that's something to be thankful for...