A new years day race seems like a reasonable moderation mechanism for the holidays, until the holidays actually start to happen and the thought of pushing yourself plus all of your indulgences through three miles is supremely unappealing. This year made my second running of Knoxville's new years day 5k, and despite being more than a little worn out from the holiday grind I actually had a really good time. Meaning that I both had fun and ran fast.
I scooted through the course in a personal best time of 17:52. Pr's are always satisfying , but this one was especially so after the year of injuries and inconsistencies that marked most of my running year for 2012. No part of me would have guessed in October, a month where I accumulated a total of 9 miles, that I would set any kind of PR on January 1st.
Through Schwenk's inspiration, I decided to go back to plan based training this year. For the new years day race, I worked through Hal Higdon's Advanced 5k plan. I'll also be using a Higdon plan for the Asheville Marathon in March. Later in the year, I have plans by Matt Fitzgerald that I'll be using for different races. My goal in all this is to see what happens when I train specifically for something, versus running how and when I feel like it, and jumping into races last minute. Also, I'd like to maintain some consistency in my running and avoid another year of the boom and bust cycle.
My general success at this race is also exciting because I'm running for a team this year, Tennessee Spine has assembled a group to compete in KTC's team competition. For our debut we placed second overall, not bad in an environment as competitive as running in Knoxville can be.
Nice 5k buddy!
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