Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Today is my race. I’m writing this ahead of time, of course, so I have no idea how it’s going to turn out. And, as is the case most of the time, you probably won’t even get an update after the whole thing is over until you have forgotten about it.

It’s my first 5K race in two years. I weigh less than I did at the last race and I’ve been training harder than I did for the last race. Neither one of those facts are helping my confidence right now. My goal is to beat my last time. Last time I did the 5K in forty minutes, so I want to do this race in less than forty minutes. Sounds easy enough, right?

Wrong. I have been running the prerequisite 3.2 miles during my training and I haven’t gotten close to the forty minute goal. I know that there is some extra adrenaline or something that makes you run faster when you compete, but I’m in much better shape right now. Shouldn’t I be able to get closer than three minutes from my goal?

My original goal was to place in my age division. That’s a really cool goal and if I make it, that’s great, but it is so dependent on other people. Sure, it’s an easy thing to accomplish if no one in my age division competes. It gets exponentially harder to achieve with each additional contestant. Plus, it’s concentrating on something outside of myself. I decided that my only goal should be to beat my personal best.

So, my personal best was forty minutes. I’ve got to finish in less than forty minutes. All my training runs have fallen short of that goal, so what am I to expect on this final race day? Who knows? I guess I’ll post my time after the race.