Greetings to all and wishes for a nice weekend!
Had the first race today since Sep. ’20. Opted for 5K (not 10) being concerned with potential injuries and remembering how my hip started “crying” after 8 km a year ago forcing me to slow down significantly to avoid getting DNF.
The weather was “hell sent” this morning. The temperature dropped from 58-59F to 38 overnight and kept falling through 35. It rained cats and dogs and shortly before the start the rain converted into a mix with snow also accompanied with strong and gusty wind. So, my last moment decision was to run in thermal underwear. Pretty absurd for late April…
However, the race itself went well. The good side of all this was that I became totally relaxed about the timing and did not expect any good result. Just considered it as a trial or a slightly-above-CV workout. And surprisingly “landed” with 19.10. Was especially happy that after entering the final km I started thinking something like: “And that is all? Perhaps I could make a couple km more….”. Accordingly, was able to inject the remaining fuel during the last 400-500 and take over a small group of younger guys who were some 40-50 m ahead.
For curiosity’s sake I opened a couple of so-called age-grading calculators and found that one of them returned 15.06 as an age-graded equivalent and another one even 15.01. I never raced 5K in my youth (just 3K sometimes with PR 8.40) and while the former time was likely doable some 35-40 years ago, the latter seemed unlikely to be achieved. So, I am theoretically in an equivalent form as 35-40 years ago, and this sounds good.
One more observation. It appears that “predictors” based on 5x1k interval work for me, with a certain adjustment though. Comparing with regular trainer shoes my today’s average was some 2 sec/km faster than intervals ' average a week ago. And some 3 sec/km slower than in “super shoes” 2 weeks ago.
Anyway, with my current miserable average mileage today’s result is likely the limit. Logged just 55 miles in March (was mostly skiing) and only 110 since 1 April. Hope to be able to reach at least 50 mpw in summer to move further.
Thanks to everybody here! There are so many insightful and informative posts in this thread and outstanding people that really inspire!