2012 Vinton Fall Festival 5k

2012 Vinton Fall Festival 5k

(Secret 10k)

Foreword

     A 5k foot race at the end of a sprint triathlon makes an excellent platform for me to challenge myself. My priority goal in all the VTS triathlons I did this year was to just place well in the run segment and maybe set a tri 5k PR. I did manage the PR at Richmond with a 21:46 and as far as I'm concerned that made my 2012 triathlon season a success. 

     A straight 5k road race is a different breed of horse for me right now though. My road race 5k PR is a 19:21 set in Nov 2010 at the Drumstick Dash, 2 years later and I still remember strikingly well how hard I had to push for it. Something in that run is still laying out on the course and I haven't seen it since. I avoided 5k's for the next 12 months, but I did go back to the same race in 2011 just to see if I could beat it. I could not. I did manage to come in under 20 minutes though with a 19:47 and establish a streak of 3 consecutive sub 20 5k's. 

     Since establishing the sub 20 5k streak at the 2011 Drumstick Dash I have once again avoided straight out 5k road races, instead focusing my 5k efforts to sprint triathlons. Circumstances being what they are however, I find myself needing a local 10k race and none are available so I have decided to run the Vinton Fall Festival 5k race course twice and add the times together for a 10k time. Interestingly enough, the 2010 Vinton Fall Festival 5k was the race that got me my first sub 20.

  The Event

2nd Place Age Group with a 20:26

Garmin Data HERE

The Vinton Fall Festival 5k
2012-time 20:22.92, pace 6:33/M, Place 14/122 overall, 2/7 in my age group, 13/63 among men 
(To be updated when results are posted online)
 

     The streak is dead. My official 5k time of 20:26 reflects a strong run compared to where my training stats have been lately, but not a strong run by historical standards. Mile splits of 6:07, 6:34, and 6:49 show a fast burnout and lack of discipline. I had to work harder for the 20:26 than what I should have and when I started the course the 2nd time for my "unofficial" 5k, my body was needing a mile in recovery mode and I lacked the will to fight it, so I just ran a progressive recovery with high 9, high 8, and high 7 mile splits for an unofficial 10k time of 48:09.

     Looking forward, I can still claim a streak of five 5k's with a sub 7 pace, and that is a highly sustainable and much more desirable stat for me to maintain anyway. As I continue to look towards Half Marathons as peak performance events my training across all distances needs to reflect goals that fall in line with the primary objective of 1/2 marathon PR's and right now that means holding an average pace of 7:15 for 13.1 miles. Todays official 5k pace of 6:33 reflects well towards that goal. My unofficial 10k time of 48:09 does not reflect well of that goal with a 7:42 pace, however in an official 10k race I would not have started out so fast or burned out so rapidly, so the refection can be misleading.

     The best thing is I have an opportunity to do it all again next week at the Bank of Fincastle 5k. The Fincastle course is tougher with more hills and not a good place to look for a PR, but it will serve as a good course to run another double with more pace specific goals. I'll still be looking to beat this weeks time, but at a steady pace and with a steady pace on the double.

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