Comparing Personal Records

One of the things I struggle with most when it comes to running races is knowing what pace I should target. When I'm sticking with races of the same distance, it's fairly simple to come up with a pace (generally I target a few seconds per mile faster than my last run or my PR). But when I jump between distances, it becomes harder. How do I know how fast I should try to run a half marathon when my last one was six months ago?

While determining what pace to run a half marathon right now is not something I have to worry about, I will soon need to figure out a plan for running a 10K. Can I use my recent 5Ks to predict a 10K time? How does my recent 5K PR compare to my 10K, 10 mile, and half marathon PRs from last year?

Roughly a year ago, a friend of mine told me about Jeff Galloway's Magic Mile. In short, the theory is that taking the time from running a good, hard mile every couple weeks can be used to predict one's performance in longer distance races assuming the runner has properly trained for the distance. I tried a couple of magic miles, but I ran into a similiar problem of not knowing what pace to target for the mile which resulted in an inconsistent pace.

Since then I have found a calculator on Runner's World that will translate a result into various other distances (1500 meters, 1 mile, 3K, 5K, 5 mile, 10K, 10 mile, half marathon, and marathon). So looking at my current PRs, how do they compare?

I think the easiest way to compare the PRs is to convert them to a consistent distance, and I think one mile makes the most sense. Here's how they stack up:

2014 Sacramento Zoo Zoom 10K	6:59
2014 Sac Credit Union 10 Mile Run	7:02
2014 Shamrock'n Half Marathon	7:07
2015 Sacramento Zoo Zoom 5K	7:11

Looking at this, although the speed in MPH of my recent 5K PR is the fastest, it is the slowest PR of the bunch. I'm not surprised by this: I didn't think I would be back to where I was yet. My 2014 PRs are in order by shortest to farthest run, but they are also in order of most recent to least recent. I'd like to think the recent factor plays a bigger role, but I do think my performance decreases in longer runs more than it does for most.

Doing a bit of further conversions, if I converted my 10K PR to 5K, the expectation would be that I'd finish in 23:12 (41 seconds faster than I finished on Sunday which is over 13 seconds per mile faster). If I convert my 5K PR to 10K, I'd expect to finish in 49:50 - nearly a minute and a half slower than my PR. That suggests that if I were to run a 10K tomorrow, that I should target 8:02 per mile. Hopefully by the time I decide to take on my first 10K of the year I will be able to do better than that (depending on the weather).

Sacramento Zoo Zoom 5K

Today I took on the Sacramento Zoo Zoom 5K. I have ran the Zoo Zoom twice in the past, but both of those times I ran the 10K. In both of those races, I set a new 10K PR, and I was looking forward to setting a new 5K PR, and in particular, was aiming to set my 5K PR below 24 minutes. I got close to 24 minutes three week ago at the Running of the Elk Thrive 5K and hoped that I could improve my performance enough to break through. The Zoo Zoom is a flat, fast course but so was the course for the Elk Thrive 5K.

The race got started on time, and I got off to a good start. There were quite a few faster runners ahead of me at the start, but I did a good job of not going too hard in the first couple minutes. I maintained a good pace throughout the first mile and completed it in 7:38. The second mile was as good (even better) than the first, and I finished it in 7:35. Generally when my second mile is faster than the first, it's a sign that I'm going to have a really good run.

That, however, was not necessarily the case today. Shortly int the third mile, I started to feel a bit off. The best way that I can explain it is that my body started to feel as if I was being lightly shocked. Not sure if it was related to the weather or if it was related to my race day breakfast, but whatever it was, it made the last mile quite difficult. I kept pushing, but I noticed that my pace had dropped a half minute per mile. I knew that I had created a buffer for the final mile since my first two were so fast, but it was going to be tight if I didn't pick up my pace a little bit.

After a few minutes, I was able to pick it up a bit, but I knew things were still going to be tight. When I hit the 3 mile mark, I was glad to almost be done and gave the run everything I had left. As I approached the line, I could see the race timer was at 23:50. As I pushed through the line, I was pretty sure that I crossed before the clock hit 24 minutes, and even if not, I ought to have a second or two buffer based on how long it took me to get to the start line.

It took a few hours before results were posted online, but once they were, I was glad to see that I indeed did meet my goal (and with six seconds to spare):

My final mile clocked in at 7:58 which was enough to get it done but quite a bit off from my pace in the previous miles.

Now that I've broken through 24 minutes, I'm not sure what's next race-wise. Would be nice to lower my 5K PR even more and perhaps get close to 8 MPH (23:15), but I'd also like to get back to running 10Ks. If I focus on training for a month, I should be at the point that I can take on my first 10K of the year. I'll have to give it some thought over the next few days.

Running of the Elk Thrive 5K Men's 35-39 Third Place Finisher

A couple weeks ago, I ran the Running of the Elk Thrive 5K. In my post about the race, I mentioned that there was some confusion as to whether or not I finished third or fourth in my age division (Men's 35-39). Well, everything has been sorted out, and it was determined that I finished third. The top three finishers in each age group got a finisher medal, and so I went to pick my up from The Running Zone in Elk Grove.

I was quite thrilled to earn my first award medal. The medal itself is pretty neat: it's made of wood and the elk image is quite nice. I think if you looked at just the front of the medal, you would think it was a half marathon finisher medal rather than an award medal.

To further celebrate my accomplishment, I've updated my running badge to indicate I was an award winner:

Five Miles

I stuck with my plan to run three times over the past week: two shorts runs with one long run on the weekend. I ended up going slightly longer than planned on the short runs: instead of running for 20 minutes I did 22 so that the runs would be just over 2.5 miles. I did 44 minutes for my long weekend run which ended up just a touch over five miles. It was the first time since my injury that I covered five miles, and it felt good to do so, but the run was a bit of a challenge.

My first two miles of the five mile run were completed with a 8:30 minute per mile pace which is about as fast as I've gone in training runs this year. The final three miles were 8:50, 8:50, and 8:55 respectively. The third mile had the most climbing, and as such, I would have liked to see either the fourth or fifth mile surpass it in speed, but I'm pretty happy with my splits.

I will be going to the Sacramento River Cats game Monday night, so I'm going to have to change my training schedule for the week. I haven't decided if my plan will be to run Tuesday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday. I'm running the Sacramento Zoo Zoom 5K on Sunday, so I won't be doing a long run this week. I will probably keep my midweek runs at 22 minutes for this week and next, and I'll probably repeat yesterday's five mile run for my long run in two weeks once I'm back to training.

Going Farther / Getting Harder

After completing the Running of the Elk Thrive 5K last Sunday, I delayed my midweek run by a day this week and ran on Wednesday instead. My midweek run went well, but my Saturday run was a bit rough. I guess the combo of racing hard on Sunday and doing 4.25 miles on Wednesday left me a bit fatigued. Regardless, I was still able to average a 9 minute per mile pace.

This coming week I think I'm going to switch to running three times a week: two short runs during the week and one long run on the weekend. My plan is to run Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday (unless there's rain). I think my short runs will start at 20 minutes (half of what I did on Saturday). I haven't decided what I'm going to do on Saturday. I'll do somewhere between 40-45 minutes depending on how I feel. I would have said 44 minutes, but if I'm able to keep my 9 minutes per mile pace, it's unlikely that I'd stop a minute shy of completing 5 miles.