5K sub 20 race report (I wish)

So if you have been following my weekly (ish) training updates you will know that since the start of November I have been aiming to run a sub20 5K.

My aims at sub20 was part of a challenge with my running buddies Chris and Tony to see if we could hit this mark by the end of the year.

If you have read any of my previous posts on this you will know things haven't quite gone to plan and I haven't improved as I had hoped I would.

From a 21.00 PB back at the start of the summer I have struggled to get anywhere near the 21 minute mark, let alone go under never mind get anywhere near 20 minutes and sub 20 has just been a fantasy.

On Saturday the three of us headed over to Hackney Marshes Parkrun which is a great course for a fats time as it is so flat and a simple there and back course. It is so flat that even the Garmin feedback of the course having a 10m elevation is a thought that is scoffed at!

There was no talk or no confidence of a sub20 attempt, Chris was not feeling well after a dose of flu, Tony had struggled with any quality training due to work commitments and I knew I was in no shape to rival this time mark but maybe a PB was on the cards maybe?

The end results were somewhat mixed, firstly I won the race out the three of us which gave me a tiny amount of satisfaction but my finishing time was 21.25, nowhere close to my PB, however it is my second fastest parkrun time so another little victory. 

The problem was that I had ended up running over 5K, too much weaving around on the course, strava reported a pace of 4.11min/km which would give me a sub 21 5K if I hadn't zigzagged around so much!

Further investigation later showed that strava also reported that I had in fact ran a sub 21 5K, clocking 20.57, so a 5K PB but not a parkrun PB. 

Overall the sub20 5K attempt has been disappointing as despite solely focusing on speed work and running faster over a shorter distance I don't feel I have felt the benefits of this and seen anywhere near the results I had wanted. I know from feedback from other runners that there are a lot of improvements I could make to my speed work training so this is something I will take away to work on.

My other realisation is that running shorter distances faster is so much harder than marathon training! It hurts, its hard and its horrible! 

Anyways onwards and upwards, thanks for all the support and encouragement as always. Not too much rest for me over Christmas, as always more time off work equals more time to run and my first event of 2016 a birthday Half Marathon at the end of January is fast approaching!

Merry Christmas all and happy running in 2016!

Tiredness, new trainers and Banana cake

Yesterday I wasn't sure what kind of training to do, I tried to listen to my body but had no idea what my body was trying to tell me. On the one hand it felt good and ready to run and on the other hand it felt lethargic and good for nothing.

I headed out for run with a very loose plan just to see how I got on...

I did a gentle ish 5km and felt OK, I felt how I should at this stage in marathon training running a gentle 5km, good with plenty of energy to run more. My legs still didn't feel quite right though.

I wanted to do some speed work as I have neglected this a bit in recent weeks.

I did 5 x 50m sprints at around 80% followed by 50m recovery jogs.

Not a lot of energy in the tank but not too bad.

So I repeated again and I very quickly ran out of steam.

A gentle 3km jog home left my legs feeling wooden and tired, I am not sure what  to put my lethargy down to, I have trained well followed the same warm up and cool down routines, I am eating plenty of good carbs and protein, plenty of fruit and veg and I am sleeping well and in a good routine. 

All I can do is look after myself and try and listen to my body and then act accordingly.

Yesterday was the first run in my newly purchased trainers, Asics GT 3000.

My initial feedback on them is not great as I am not that comfortable with them in comparison to my previous pair which were Asics GT 2000.

I am planning to write up a review of both trainers and a comparison between the two types.

Post run I cooked up a multi veg stir fry which looked so amazingly colourful cooking in my wok but the photo below doesn't really capture the vibrant colour properly!

I also baked myself a new cake recipe that I recently found courtesy of lissyruns.com you can find the recipe here Dark Chocolate Banana cake.

All I can say is it is an amazingly magical mix of chocolately banana gooeyness which is just awesome! It is so easy to bake and will be providing me with a sweet snack treat for the week ahead.