5k race tomorrow!!!

The last time I did a running race was in January 2011 (quite disastrous 3000m indoors). Not that I did not want to but you know...

And I cannot decide whether I am looking forward to tomorrow or whether I am completely indifferent. One thing I know and that is that I am not scared or nervous. There is nothing to be nervous about, I am not shooting for a win, PR or anything fancy. I just want to know what I can do and get some experience racing. Although I am pretty sure I can see what I can do during training where I do not have to pay for it, so it is more about getting racing experience. 

It seems I am mostly indifferent except last night when I was falling asleep I had a bright moment when I was looking forward to this race.

My indifference stems from the lack of “motivation” (PR, prize etc) and “expectations”. I am doing it for experience, I am going to suck and there is nothing exciting about that. Yeah yeah, people might say something along the lines of pushing your body and giving your best given your current fitness and feel like you have accomplished something but I somehow cannot wrap my head around that. Call me cocky or a snob but I do not think that running 21min 5k is anything special no matter that that’s where my current fitness is. This is just an intermediate phase. Can we just fast forward to the future when I will be able to run 17:30 and when I can be excited about racing? :)

Ok, I got the usual ramble out of the way and now onto my goal: Go out at 4min pace and pull it off to squeeze under 20:30. Simple.  I believe that it is the only strategy that might (might being the key word here) get me under 20:30. If I start slower, I will never be able to pick it up. So I need to start faster. But not too fast of course.

Although this 20:30 goal is kind of a long reach since I did 5x1k @4min pace workout with 3min rest and it was not pretty (read: I died after the 3^rd one and each one of them left me bend over my knees gasping for some oxygen. But I was running up and downhill, so I should take that into consideration). But I do not have any other benchmark to shoot for and I want to have a goal, I NEED to have a goal otherwise I will just jog it. Maybe breaking 21min would make more sense but let’s be ambitious, shall we?

I am 100% sure that the course will not be accurate. It is a loop course. 2 loops around a lake to be exact. Start and finish are at the same place. What is the probability that the loop has exactly 2500m? Close to zero.  (This actually holds true for all loop courses that start and finish at the same place.) Therefore I am going to wear Garmin and hopefully it will work decently and I will be able to use it as a guide and get some data out of it afterwards.

And on a completely unrelated topic: There is a Olympic games sponsors commercial on German TV that I find very nice (they probably show it in other countries as well). They show bunch of kids competing in swimming, running, gymnastics... And then they show how a mom must wake up her child very early in the morning to get him to practice although it is clear he wants to stay in bed. Then there is another kid with bandage on his foot and his mom mending to it. And then at the end there are athletes winning races and hugging their moms afterwards. The slogan said “the hardest task in the world is also the best task in the world”. I do not understand how the topic “mom” ties with those sponsors but I like it anyway.