I Love 5ks. I Hate 5ks.

Ahoy. It's race time again.

Life permitting, I will be running the Ho Ho Ho Holiday Run 5k tomorrow morning.

I love 5ks. I hate 5ks.

I love 5ks because you get all that race day energy. A good crowd. Camaraderie. Race bling (Sweatshirt in this case). Butterflies in your stomach. And you get a point in time measurement of your fitness.

I hate 5ks because they make you want to puke. You are running all out for 3 miles. There is no reserve, you use it up and hold on for dear life. Crowded. One little mistake and there is no time to recover. That friggin' 12yr old girl who runs right by you at the end!! And you get a point in time measurement of your fitness.

Now, I try to have perspective. Up until this point I have been doing only long and slow, there is no reason whatsoever that I should expect a good performance in this race. That said, I don't want to have a bad one either which I define as slower than half my 10k time from October. In that race I ran a 49:52. So I want to run sub 24:30 but I would prefer 23:59. But I don't know what to expect. I haven't been doing fast.

Oy. Shut. Brain. Off. Now.

Did I mention I hate 5ks? I can't wait...

Posted in: 5k