This race was another on the PA short-course circuit where I thought we might end up having a team, and it seemed like a nice follow-up to the (40)8K in April. It didn't hurt that it's super close to home (just three miles away in Golden Gate Park) on extremely familiar ground.
I was also just excited to try my hand at a 5K again, especially in a situation where I'd have a big chunk of weeks to train for it consistently in a way that really targeted 5K speed. So often when I've run 5Ks it's been in the middle of training for a longer distance, or the beginning of a season as a kind of fitness gauge, or a convenient way to get in a workout; I was really curious what I might be able to do at this point with some for-real 5K-specific training.
I really do believe that variety in what you train for plays a big role in everything from keeping running and training mentally fresh to making you fitter and less injury-prone by switching up the physical stimuli, so it was nice to do a couple of months training for the half and 10-miler and then switch gears to shorter, more speed-focused stuff.
And then what happened?
Amazingly, NOTHING! That is, I just kept training away, having some really great workouts where I couldn't believe how fast I was running, especially after having such a shit year of "training" in 2021. I didn't have to travel for work or anything else, so I was able to just hang out in SF, get my runs done, get my twice-weekly strength training done, and keep getting treatment for my right hip and heel as needed. Sure, I had a dud workout here & there, but overall, the trajectory was good and I was feeling confident about the race.
Race Day:
I learned my lesson from the 8K and planned absolutely NOTHING for the day before the race other than a shake-out run & some simple chores. I slept late, did my 30:00 shakeout run + strides first thing, then spent the day chilling and making sure I had all my ducks in a row for the morning.
Originally I was thinking I would drive the 3 miles to Golden Gate Park, run a 2-3 mile warm up, run the race, then drive home. That way I could just dump stuff in my car and be able to get home fairly quickly (since we had a BBQ to attend that afternoon). The more I thought about it, though, the more I didn't want to deal with parking or worrying about leaving stuff in my car. So in the end I decided to just bring my little running back pack for my sweats & race shoes & jog the three miles there & back.
I got up at 6:30 & got dressed, walked around the corner to my coffee shot for some breakfast & pre-race caffeine at 7:00, finished packing up my little backpack, & was on my way to Peacock Meadow by 7:30. At ~8:10 I arrived at the park where a bunch of runners from the various Bay Area PA teams were warming up & a race announcer was riling up the crowd. By the time I dropped off my backpack at our team tent, got through the port-a-potty line, & changed into my race shoes, it was pretty much time to head to the start. (I'd planned to do a few strides & drills but just didn't time it well enough.)
At PA races I've been mostly taking the approach of lining up towards the back of people in club singlets, as virtually all the men range from slightly to much MUCH faster than me and among the women I'm usually more or less mid-pack-to-lower-third. I was kind of looking around trying to guess where was the best place for me to be when out of nowhere, the starting pistol went off and the race was underway! Eek! At least I was far enough back that I wasn't trampled by anyone running 5:00 miles.
The nice thing about this race is that it's very much on my home turf -- I've run the first and third miles of this course probably hundreds of time since I've lived in San Francisco and I know exactly what the terrain does, how to run the tangents, etc.
I had this thought that I would try to run the first mile like some of the mile repeats I've been doing lately, shooting for 6:50ish, then see if I could ratchet down a bit. I thought if I had a great day, if my legs felt good and I executed the pacing perfectly, I *might* just be able to run 6:45 pace average. Alas my legs just didn't feel great from the beginning and didn't feel like they wanted to turn over super well. As often happens in 5Ks I started way too fast (like 6:15ish) and just tried to gradually let off the gas until I reached a sustainable pace. Alas despite my best efforts, my average pace just kind of slid right past 6:45-6:50-6:55 to 6:58, 7:00, 7:02, 7:04, and I split 6:58 for that first mile.
In mile 2 I kind of forgot that there were 2 pretty big hills, and though I kept trying to speed up or at least not slow down, I really felt like I was struggling more than I should be less than halfway through the race. Fortunately I kind of caught that negative thinking right away and replaced it with "Less than 2 miles to go! You've done hard workouts longer than this. Look how fast those tenths of a mile are going by. You can do this. Just keeppushing and don't give up." Probably no coincidence, but about halfway through mile 2 I thought I was actually starting to feel a little better. I split 7:00 for mile 2 which was kind of disappointing but I was just happy to see that if you accounted for those two big hills I'd pretty much maintained my pace from mile 1.
At that point, I thought a 6:45 average pace was no longer really a possibility but I was still in a position to WAY improve my 40's 5K PR (23:00), which would still be progress. So for the last mile I just told myself, "Let's not worry about pace & just see if I can pick some people off." This is where the benefit of a PA race, even a shorter smaller one, really shows itself -- I had PLENTY of people, both men and women, in that last mile to use as mental anchors and rabbits to just keep me pulling through. I felt like I was speeding up a bit somehow and thought, "Well cool, maybe I'll still just slip in under 7:00 pace, which is awesome." So I just kept pushing and kept pushing, thinking, Let's just see what we can do here.
In that last half mile I was REALLY starting to hurt, but the end of the race is just a long straight away so it's nice that you can see the finish line coming for a good while. I was thinking "You know I am really just quite happy this level of effort right here" and had NO interest in pushing any harder; but then I looked at my watch, and HOLY FUCKING SHIT my average pace had somehow dropped from 6:59 to 6:46! With just a couple tenths to go, I was thinking, If you don't knock that down one more second you're just a jerk, let's gooooo! And somehow I found just *one* more gear, cranked it down to sub-6:00 pace, and finished with a 6:22 (!) third mile.
- Official: 3.1 miles / 21:14 / 6:50 pace
Garmin: 3.14 miles / 21:14 / 6:45 pace
I am pretty sure that 6:22 third mile is the fastest mile split I have EVER run in a road race. I certainly can't find any evidence on the blog, Strava, or Garmin Connect that I've ever run a faster road mile. It's been a very long time since I've tried to run one all-out mile as fast possible, but in my head I've always kind of thought "Well if I'm really, really fit and have been focusing on speed, maybe 6:20." But I think this made it pretty clear that I've been selling myself a bit short.
Also, as I said, I really thought averaging 6:45 pace was the absolute outside possibility if I had a perfect day. Well, I absolutely did not have a perfect day, and yet that's a 6:45 average pace you see there on my watch. Now you can quibble if you want about the fact that officially it was 6:50 pace, but I feel pretty good saying that my point still stands, and that point is, sometimes you really have to be careful not to dream too small. What might I have accomplished in this race if I'd said, "Oh, I think 6:30 pace is the absolute outside best I could do today" rather than 6:45?
Who can say, friends. Who can say.
As for where this 5K time fits in with those that came before it, I decided to repeat what I did after this year's Oakland Half and dig up my all-time fastest 5Ks:
*** Angela's All-Time Fastest 5Ks***
- 1) Big Bear Run, 2012 -- 20:44
2) !!!! Stow Lake Stampede, 2022 !!!! -- 21:14
3) Silicon Valley Santa Run, 2018 -- 21:21
4) PrideRun 5K 2012 -- 21:36
5) PrideRun 5K 2019 -- 21:49
So yeah. Absolute worst case, this was the fastest 5K I've run in over ten years.
TEN.
FRICKIN.
YEARS.
And, I have to say something about that 20:44 at Big Bear Run in 2012. 20:44 was my official chip time, but the race was a small school fundraiser, so the course was not certified and there were some irregularities with the markings and timing. I didn't remember to stop my watch until like 20 minutes after the race, so I didn't even have Garmin data to compare it to (though I remember seeing that my watch clocked at least 3.25 miles at the finish line). Which is all to say I have always kind of wondered if 20:44 was a valid time and if I should really be treating it as a PR given all the questions.
Which means this past weekend is still the fastest 5K I've run on a certified course where I know for a fact that the time and distance are legit, and that's pretty awesome.
Great job! This was fun to read. Your training and hard work paid off. Bask in the Glory. :)
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