I’m Going to Say It: I Have No Desire to Run a 5k

I feel like I should be signing up for one. For some reason they are huge this time of year – Turkey Trots, Jingle Bell Runs, blah blah blah. And it’s after marathon season so everyone gets to cash in on their training fitness. I’m reading all the blogs and seeing people gearing up for them, and I know the PR’s are going to start dropping like a Republican candidate. I’ve got two 5k’s that are really close to me next weekend, I had kind of figured I would do one of them – so why haven’t I signed up for one yet?

I thought long and hard about this today and realized it’s simple – I don’t want to run a 5k, I actually kind of hate them. I have not done any 5k specific training lately so I would probably screw up the pacing. They are usually really crowded races around here and parking is a hassle, which means it takes up half a day to run 3.1 miles. And they are expensive, considering how long you are out there. My recent 10k PR suggests I should be running a 22.x 5K – I don’t know if I could, but if I did I know it would be 22.x minutes of pain and suffering that I am not particularly motivated to do right now. The only distance I am really interested in training for right now is of the 42K variety.

So I am bagging any thoughts of a 5k – I will be satisfied with my sucky 5K PR until I decide to break it. I am more focused on building a marathon base. I am falling back to fundamentals on the marathon front. I am going to focus more on heart rate, which means I will need to slow up my regular training pace during everyday running. I am going to concentrate on growing the midweek medium long run. I am going to gradually increase miles and probably include one tempo run or MP run a week, in addition to the Sunday long run. Lots of long slow miles, a little speed work, no 5k’s.

I do wish everyone luck on there on the 5k front – I will be thinking of you speedsters while I am running my 9:30 p/m long run this weekend.

(I reserve the right to change my mind and run 3 5k’s next weekend).