Crazy Plan Enacted

I jumped the gun and went ahead and signed up for the Sac Beer Week 5K. Hopefully I won't have any setbacks in the next week that make that a bad decision.

To prep for the run, I added three minutes to my last run instead of two and will likely do the same on Tuesday. This way, I should have ran 3.1 miles at least once before the race next Saturday.

In my 25 minute run today, I covered 2.9 miles at my fastest pace of the year: 8:35 per mile. To break my PR next weekend, I'll need to average better than 8:15 per mile. Organized runs bring about an excited energy that propel me to fun much faster than my training runs. I don't know how much that'll be true this go 'round, but I think there's a good chance that I could break my PR next weekend. And if I don't, the run should give me good insight into where I'm at that should help with breaking it at a future run.

A Crazy Plan

I've heard about what sounds like a pretty chill 5K that will be taking place next weekend. It's a bit early in my plan to actually be taking on an organized 5K, but the distance is about right for the following weekend, so I might just be crazy enough to go for it. The race is the Sac Beer Week 5K which starts and ends at New Helvetia Brewing Co. in Sacramento. So on top of taking on my first 5K of the year, I would also get the opportunity to try some new beers. Seems like a win/win.

I have until the middle of next week to decide on whether or not I'm taking part, and I'll probably wait until then to decide just to give me another week to see where my body is at.

Speaking of which, tonight's run went well, and I completed 2½ miles for the first time this year. I'm still running at a sub 9 minutes per mile pace. I'm guessing that once I start tackling longer distances that I'll get back to my normal training pace.

Just One Run This Past Week

I skipped running mid-week this week due to a Pancake Day celebration on Tuesday and not feeling up to it on Wednesday. The break didn't negatively impact my run yesterday as I completed nearly 2⅓ miles during my 20 minute run. I'm roughly four runs away from being able to complete a 5K.

I think it'd be good if I could complete 4 miles before taking on my first 5K. Currently I'm thinking my top two candidates for my first 5K of the year are the Running of the Elk Thrive 5K or the Sacramento Zoo Zoom. I've ran the Zoo Zoom 10K the past two years, and the course is flat and fast. It certainly would be an ideal course for setting a new 5K PR.

Two More Runs According to the Plan

I completed two more runs over this past week each two minutes longer than my previous run. For both runs, I ran at a 8:50 pace. My lungs are getting back into the swing of things, and I'm feeling less winded during and at the end of my training runs.

I surpassed two miles during my run yesterday. I am nearly ⅔ of the way to a 5K. The way things are going, I ought to be able to attempt an organized 5K by the end of March. Hopefully so, as it'll be nice to take part in organized runs again.

I will be interested to see if I can set a new 5K PR in the first half of the year. My current 5K PR is 25:33 which I set in 2013, and I haven't ran a 5K since. Had I ran one last summer, I'm sure that I would have blown away that PR (my 10K PR pace is much faster than that 5K). It is nice that my 5K PR should be beatable as that should provide some good motivation.

Missed Out on Rain but Not Running

The forecast-ed storm for the weekend didn't really come to be, and as such, I was able to get out for another run. We really need the rain, so it was disappointing that the storm didn't happen.

As with my previous run, I added another two minutes to my total run time. I once again didn't slow down as expected and actually sped up to an average of 8:45 per mile. I completed 1.6 miles overall for the run. So far my plan of adding a couple minutes per run is working out well and will hopefully continue to do so.

I am ahead of schedule of where I intended to be at this point (this was supposed to be my second run and equidistant to the first). If all goes well, I should be close to two miles for next weekend's run and potentially near 5K by the end of the month. I realize that I may have to repeat distances at some point, but I'm enjoying my progress so far.

Second Scheduled Run Pulled In

With rain in the forecast for the next four or so days, I decided to go out for a run tonight rather than potentially have to wait longer than a week to get out for my second run of the year.

My Achilles has felt fine up to this point, so I figured pre-run that I'd go ahead and run for twelve minutes rather than my originally planned ten. I thought that since this would be an evening run and that I had gotten the first-run excitement out of my system that I'd likely go at a slower pace than the first run. This was not the case. I ran again at a 9 minutes per mile pace and completed 1⅓ miles during my run.

Here's hoping that my Achilles continues to hold up and that I'm able to get out for another run within the week.