HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
May you have a happy and healthy 2014, filled with scenic miles, meditative miles, recovery miles, iamsoawesome miles, race miles, and all the good things that result from running.
I started off this year the same way I started off last year, with the Needham New Year’s 5k. To start out running feels like a good luck charm for the coming year. It was a beautiful January day, with bright blue skies, temperatures in the mid twenties, and so many people out and ready to start their year off right. What could be better than that?
The race started at 11 a.m., giving me plenty of time to recover from our New Year’s festivities the night before. Greg and I stayed up until midnight watching movies, eating popcorn, and drinking craft beer. Not my normal pre-race activities, but this isn’t a normal race. I joked on social media before leaving this morning that if your New Year’s Day 5k is a PR, you need to work on your run/life balance.
For me, the point of a New Year’s Day 5k is to show that even if you’re up late having a few drinks the night before, you can still get out and run 3.1 miles the next day. Moreover, you want to… because you can’t think of a better way to start the year. That’s cool.
I decided to have my normal New Year’s Eve, and run the race as a symbolic beginning to the year, a pledge to my commitment to running 🙂
That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to race hard, it just meant I had low expectations for the results of that hard work after having a few drinks, staying up past midnight, and still getting up with the kids in the morning.
To my surprise, I ran a great race! I came in at 28:39, my first sub 29 minute 5k and a new PR. I credit my amazing cheering squad. One of my husband’s coworkers even joined him at the end (she ran a FAST race!) and helped him get the stroller from the three mile mark to the finish before I could, so they got to see me three times on the race course! It was hard not to stay motivated 🙂
Some strategies that helped me this race:
Pretend someone in front of you is pulling you up the hill: I would choose someone a ways ahead of me and pretend they were pulling me up the hill, focusing on the center of their back. It helped me stay strong and ignore the fact that my legs and lungs were claiming THEY were the ones doing the work. I tend to speed up at the bottom of hills because I want them over more quickly, so I once I had to choose someone else halfway through the incline. Pick someone a ways ahead.
Turn around and choose someone you don’t want to let pass you: This sounds petty, but I put in some major effort just after the mile 3 marker to keep a girl with pigtails from passing me. Towards the finish it can be harder to “not lose” someone in front of you, which might be a less competitive way to use someone else to motivate you, but is more vague. “Not lose” like ten feet behind them, or within eye sight? I lost my blue shirt, orange-hat pacer just after mile 2, but by refusing to be passed by someone at mile 3, I managed to cut some extra seconds off the clock.
Remind yourself that you’ll recover: This is important after an incline, or running into headwinds, or any point when you feel like you won’t recover without stopping. I was cramping a little and completely out of breath and ready to stop at one point in the race, and then we turned out of the wind and the course flattened slightly. By trusting that I would feel better even if I kept going, I didn’t lose time by taking an unnecessary break. At mile 3, I almost walked. Remembering how disappointed I would be if I did, and how good I would feel in just a few minutes, I kept going. I’m glad I did!
And Finally – My New Year’s Running Goals:
1. Average 15 miles a week for the year
2. Run at least two half marathons
3. Do speed workouts at least twice a month
More on these later 🙂
Happy New Year! Run long and prosper 🙂
Awesome job! Congrats on the PR too. Your hubby rocks for spectating with the littles on this cold day. My husband is often my personal photographer at races too. We are very lucky ladies! I wish you nothing but happy feet for a year of great running! Happy new year.
Thanks Kate! Yeah, it was pretty cold to spectate! I kept telling him he didn’t have to come, but he thought it’d be good to get some fresh air with the boys and my oldest especially likes to see us run. The tough part about asking Greg to spectate is that then he can’t run himself, and he’s actually a much more accomplished runner! Sometimes we’ll have family come down from out of state so we can run the same race 🙂 We even got a babysitter once so we could go run the same 10k… hard to imagine it, but someday the kids will probably just run the races with us!
Happy New Year to you!!
Wow!! Congratulations on the fantastic 5K this morning, and the PR…such a great way to start the year.
Happy Trails to you in 2014!
Thanks Marcia! It really was a great way to start the year, and unexpected, too! I planned to run hard, but I didn’t think running hard would get me a PR on so little sleep after the crazy holiday season!!! Hope you have a wonderful 2014 as well 🙂
Love hearing your race reports and again, great suggestions! and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but hearing about your struggles even with a 5k helps me to not be so hard on myself and to push myself too.
My goals in case anyone cares is to run a 5k non-stop, run a 5k in under 30 minutes (just once!) which will require some speed training goals and run 20 miles per week. Considering putting a 10k on my list too.
Reading your prior post and seeing how much you have achieved since you started running is encouraging but also a little scary! I could be running a half marathon if I wanted to???!!! no way!
hahaha, yes, you could train for a half marathon if you wanted to! I love your goals, those look great. I managed to run my first 5k in under 30 minutes without running more than 10 miles a week… so if you’re making sure your speed workouts are quality ones, you may find that you don’t need to increase your mileage that substantially in order to meet that goal. 20 miles a week is a big time commitment, I remember doing it for half marathon training and it was a lot! I’m hoping to average 15 miles a week this year, and that’s a pretty big goal for me. It’ll mean trying to extend my short runs to 5 miles, which is more a time commitment issue than a distance one, if that makes sense. Looking forward to hearing more about your running as 2014 gets underway!