Christmas 5k race

Today I " raced" the Christmas 5k. I said " raced" because to be honest it was a confortably hard effort all the way, I know that I am in much faster shape. I ran 25:54 or so, my name does not appear in the race results, but I crossed the line in 25:58 minus 4 secs or so that took me to run over the starting mat.

I dont feel too dissapointed, because I pretty much ran the same as the last time, but I felt much better the whole way and I know that I can even run sub 25 mins, I did several light workouts that indicated that, but because my fear of getting out of my confort zone and get in the pain cave, I paid the price with a sub par performance.

Another key factor is my weight, I woke this morning and my weight was 197 pounds, I am just too heavy, I am not eating that much, but I am drinking more coke than not, and its affecting me obviously, the overall calories that I am consuming through beverages are insane.

All in all, the good part is that my confidence was good today, I did not feel too pressured during the day, felt like I was going to train to be honest, I think that I attribute that to the workouts that I did that made me sure about what I was capable of. In my last race, the fastest that I ran was in the last 1k of a couple of easy runs and I was very afraid and clueless of I was capable of.

Knowing that I am capable of running a certain time, that makes me confident and ready to roll. To be honest I am enjoying running a lot more running 5 times per week, because I can get the most of my workouts and have 2 rest days per week. As I said earlier I am not professional, so no point in obsessing to drop 1-2 seconds of a time.

Probably next week I ll do a time trial in the mirador to make sure I can run at least sub 25:30, probably these days racing  watchless (I always race without a watch) is not helping a whole lot, because my competitive fire is decreasing and maybe if I had worn a watch I could focus better in MY goal,also today when I saw that if I did not increase my pace with around 100s to go, I would get over 26 mins, ( if I did accelerate with 100s to go, why I did not accelerate before in the race, maybe the watch is a motivator in some way, it could be your best friend or just worst enemy) but who knows! maybe if I checked the watch and saw that I was running so slow I would get frustrated well before finishing the race. Although today I was frustrated with all those old guys around me well before the finish!

At the end of the way, the fitness is there and if I keep running 5 times per week and incorporating workouts and medium long runs, I ll eventually get better. Couple that with a decrease in weight and I am good to go!

On to the next one!

Edited... I appeared in the results in 25.53 first half in 12.31, second half in 13.22. I thought that I was going faster in the first half, but it seems that is my fitness, at least I did not get worse from my last race, I ran the exact time, and it is the first time that I run the identical time in 2 different races.