5km Test, Going as Fast as Possible

Boy was that fun, and hard! I am so looking forward to the race in Niagara Falls that I decided to push my pace a little bit tonight. My ankle is really feeling remarkable given all that's come before, and the knee seems to be cooperating. I was going to do 5km tonight at a decent pace, so what the hell, I thought to myself, why not push it a bit and see if I can get the pace under 5:00/km at the beginning and see how it goes?

It was chilly tonight, and the usual ten minute walk to warm up left me a bit less warm than I'd hoped. Perhaps it was because of this that I started into my run with a quick cadence, trying to get my heart rate up and get the blood moving. After about half a kilometre the Garmin was showing that my pace was 4:45/km, and that my heart rate was in the 150s. In other good news I wasn't feeling the usual aches and pains in the first part of the run that I have become accustomed to.

As I continued running, crossing streets, dodging traffic and such, I began to get into it more and more, and I really was having fun. After about 2k I noticed that my pace was a surprising 4:26km! My breathing was the only thing that I didn't find fun - the cold air burned my lungs a bit, and I had all this goo that I had to keep spitting out which was preventing me from breathing freely. Yuck! As I struggled for the next kilometre or so with this problem I was shocked to see that my pace remained steady at 4:26/km. Maybe I could finish the 5k under 4:30/km average pace?... I thought to myself.

Then, at about the 3.75k mark the real test began. My pace was now 4:29/km and my body was telling me that it no longer liked what I was putting it through. The goo issues were gone, mercifully, and I needed every square inch of my lungs at this point. By the 4k mark my pace had slipped to 4:30/km and I was on the verge of giving in and slowing down. I kept myself going by saying to myself that I would not look at the Garmin until I hit some landmark in the distance, like a stop sign or lamp post, and each time that I reached the goal I noticed that my pace remained steady at 4:30/km.

With about a half kilometre to go I was really starting to labour. I concentrated as best as I could on maintaining form, though this was definitely breaking down a bit. For the first time in forever I even started to get a stitch in my right trap muscle, telling me that I was no longer relaxed. I didn't care though, as by this point I had only a few hundred metres to go.

And man did those last few hundred metres seem to take forever! I pushed harder to maintain my pace and with about a hundred metres to go, as I passed another runner who gave me a strange look most likely because my breathing sounded less than healthy, I glanced at the Garmin and saw that my pace had dropped to 4:29/km! Nice! As the watch counted off the last agonizing tens of metres I was nearing the end of my stamina, but I did it!

Final time for the 5k - 22:28, which translated to a pace just a hair under 4:30 and registered as 4:29/km! That's something like 7:15/mile, which a month ago seemed like an unattainable thing that only Lifestrides and Nitmos do. Of course, they do it for a heck of a lot longer than 5k, but one has to start somewhere. You gotta love the quick improvements one experiences at the beginning of trying something new...

That was a fun run, and definitely a workout. I loved every minute of it.

Garmin don't lie.

The google image of my route.