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After the winter slacking and hibernation, I signed up for Unionville Festival 5K in June with a couple of friends. But I didn't have any race plans before June. I just wanted to take my time to train and hopefully I can hit sub 25 this year. I started to run again since March 1st this year. But it was still 3 month away from June's race so I was taking it easy. In April Felix told me there's a cheap 5K race downtown that I should go to test my strength. I was hesitating on signing up because I was still struggling with 5:45 pace during my workouts. I didn't wanna go if I couldn't do better than before. Thanks to a colder than normal April, my business was not too busy so that I have time to rest. Plus Felix and Daniel kept on encouraging me to go. So I finally signed up for this $10 5K race. I asked Felix what pace should I do for this race and he told me to try 5:20min/km pace. I didn't believe him that I could do it because I was struggling to finish 5K with 5:45 pace during my workouts. So I told myself just to finish the race with 5:40 and I'm happy. The week before the race, I wasn't not doing any workout at all. I rested 7 days prior to race. Not because I wanted to rest, because I have a low expectation for this race and didn't want to run.
Finally the race day, I went to downtown with Daniel and met a new running friend Tu there. Tu was a really interesting guy and he said something that moved my heart. He said "You gotta keep training and keep running, keep signing up for races to keep yourself motivated". I started running with Felix since 2009 and yet I'm still slow and can't do anything greater than 5K because I always lack motivation. Each year I only train for the race I sign up, after the race I become lazy and return everything I trained. Every year is the same. Maybe I should sign up for more races to keep myself motivated throughout the year. I was so glad I came to race today and met Tu. After we talked for a while, the race finally started. Again, everybody charges out like crazy and 200-300m later I realized I was going too fast. I was already doing sub 5min/km speed even I was already trying to control myself not to charge out with the pack. Then I did what Felix told me, I was trying to control my speed around 5:20. After 1km I still feel okay, probably the cold air from the lake helped me to cool down. Maybe the anxiety helped me to push myself. I was doing better than I thought. Then I found lady with similar pace to follow so I didn't need to keep looking at my watch. After 2.5km turning point, my pace bunny started to speed up and I already started to feel tired. My speed slowed down to 5:30min/km. Then I found another pace bunny, but only this time this bunny was a fat dude. I ran beside him and chatted a few words with him, not because I wanted to chat, just because I wanna relax and calm myself. 400m before finish line!! I could see the banner from MEC!! So I left the fat bunny and started to speed up. But I was going too fast in the beginning and when I was near the finish line, I was already out of breath and had to slow down. I should had done the exactly opposite: gradually speed up and sprint the last 100m.
After crossing the finish line and high-five-ed with Daniel and Tu, I found myself with sub 27 minute finish. WOW, that was totally unexpected! This race gave me exactly what I needed: confidence! It got my heart pumped. And I'm going to keep this up and do better each race. I'm going to quit being a slacker. And I'm going to try my best to achieve sub 25 in June. Time for more workouts.
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how the heck did you remember what pace I told you after nearly 3 months?! I don't even remember it myself! :-)
ReplyDeletei remember every race @@"
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