Finally Broke 17 in 5K

Why would you go out in 5:02?

swerve wrote:

Why would you go out in 5:02?

I don't know, I went out at what felt like 5:20-ish, then my jaw dropped when I saw 5:02.

It was a bit too fast, I was 3rd but then dropped back to 10th at mile 2. I didn't feel so bad though...

You are probably capable of about 12 seconds faster without the outrageous 5:02 opening mile?

Haha, yeah, true. I felt so good, since it was cold, so I decided to go out a "little" faster than usual...

The 17:21 I ran I did a 5:09 on the first mile then slowed to 5:40-5:50 pace.

Be wary, some courses are not legit. And don't even get me started on misplaced mile markers.

bnfnbn wrote:

Be wary, some courses are not legit. And don't even get me started on misplaced mile markers.

This was a legit course, it was measured out, I know the coach who holds it.

AND I ran a 17:40 2 weeks ago on the exact same course

With a large drop from your 1st to 2nd mile, I would say you crossed your anaerobic threshold. 16:49 is about 5:20 pace, so I'd advise going out around 5:15. Going sub5 would be detrimental to the rest of your race. This isn't an 800.Were you leading the race at the mile?

Sub16_5K wrote:

Haha, yeah, true. I felt so good, since it was cold, so I decided to go out a "little" faster than usual...

The 17:21 I ran I did a 5:09 on the first mile then slowed to 5:40-5:50 pace.

You're a n00b if you went out that fast and then slowed down that much.

Sub16_5K wrote:

The weather was much cooler today down here in FL today too...

Weird thing is, why is it that I always PR whenever I start out really fast, yet if I go out slower, I can't hold on to the pace?

It's weird...

First off, congrats on reaching your goal. I broke 17 for the first time back in August, and it's a good feeling to finally run a kind of decent 5k time.

That being said, you suck at pacing. But you're in high school, so you still have a lot of room to improve. What helped me with pacing was tempo runs. If you throw down the first mile 10-20 seconds faster than your prescribed pace then you are gonna be in a world of pain come the third mile. T runs definitely helped me keep my energy expenditure in check and translated well to races. Of course you aren't making your own workouts ( I assume) so you will just have to focus on relaxing and flowing through the first mile, and then start pushing yourself after. Good luck on the rest of your season, and I want to see a sub 16:30 from you before it's all said and done!

congrats on breaking 17, I'm working on that as well. For me, I run pretty even splits throughout a race but if I don't go out fast I have a hard time picking up the pace. I ran 19:07 5 weeks ago with my first 2 miles both at 6:04. I knew it was slow but couldn't get myself to run faster. Last week I ran 17:49 with my first two miles at 5:44 and 5:39. I'm not too concerned about you going out hard because your next 2 miles are about even and you don't continually crash, if racing like that helps you run faster then stick with it.

I'm going to take a look at some of your other threads to see if I can steal some of your training and join the sub 17 club