Constant fear of getting out of shape?

meant to say "I wish I could tell myself that my life isn't any less worth living if I am 1 minute slower in the 5k"

Sounds like your mental outlook needs to change. As a runner, you should find "contentment with the grind". Your training is the biggest part of your running success and you must have a passion for it be at your best. Set a goal for track season and remind yourself that every training session counts towards reaching your goals. As for your eating, you should try to focus eating healthy, balanced diet, aiming to have a vegetable,fruit, protein and starch at each meal rather than worrying about the little details. You should also not stress too hard about your weight. If you are training hard and eating healthy, your body will reach its optimum weight allowing you to feel and perform at your best.

Taking a few weeks off and enjoying the holidays is normal after a long XC season. If you are a young runner you’ll benefit from a short break and return to training with a hunger to get back at it. A phenomenon I’ve seen many times is the young runner who refuses to take any down-time and trains too hard over the off-season, peaks early but fades by the championship season.

In every aspect of life we follow patterns of work followed by rest:

Days are filled with breaks. Your week has two days off. Your year is broken up with Summer vacation. And so on.

It’s good to take breaks.

You’ve got some good trolling chops. I like the long buildup and then the big punchline.

20:40 for 5k is out of shape. I lol’d.

The other trolls on this board should look to this as an example of how it should be done.

Do better

2/10

Your fitness will go up and down just like everyone else. It's normal tobe anxious before an important race, but if you are not in peak condition, it's not worth worrying about.

If you just eat 3 full meals a day and train hard the weight should fall into place.

You recognize that you have some issue and that's good. It means if you're vigilant it won't get to you.

Just train like you always do, AFTER A NICE BREAK and everything will fall into place. Focus on eating 3 good meals and really focus on training hard. It'll all work out.

xcrunner56 wrote:

This post is all over the place but I wish I could just tell myself that my life isn't any worth living if I go from a 20:40 5k to a 21:40 5k.

I don't want to be a dick but if you got a 5K over 20 minutes there's no way you should worry about running this much, especially about specific foods to eat or gaining 2 measly pounds. If you want to improve or maintain your 5K pace and it's only 20 minutes right now, it's pretty simple. Just run more. If you run 35 miles a week under 8:00 pace for maybe five months you'll probably be down to 18:30ish. (I'm assuming you're a guy, it's gonna take a lot more than that if you're a girl). Anyway not trying to be harsh, but at your level specific foods or race weight is so so meaningless. You just need to get off your ass and run if you want to improve.