5K Visualization, Again

Another 5K tomorrow.  My journey to improving my 5K time this year continues.  My last attempt a couple of weeks ago yielded no changes since my first recent 5K on Thanksgiving Day.  All of my recent 5K's have been clustered around 23 1/2 minutes.  I realized a couple of weeks ago that I just wasn't mentally engaged in the same way that I have been during Ironman's and Half Ironman's.  I haven't wrapped my brain around the mental commitment needed in a 5K.  I've learned that there are truly different types of suffering in running, and that suffering during an Ironman is different than suffering during a 5K.  Tomorrow, I continue my journey with a focus on that concept of 5K suffering.  I'll begin by visualizing today and tonight.  In fact, I began the process this morning, as I practice tomorrow's warm up.

This morning, I did an easy one mile run and then did four 400m efforts at 7 minute pace (over fairly flat segments, except for the fourth one, which was a little uphill).  I recovered for about a minute after each one.  These efforts, purposely, were not supposed to be too hard, in fact, during the first three I kept my breathing at about every 4th step.  On the fourth one, since I was running uphill, my breathing came up to every 3rd step.  I really tried hard to visualize running comfortably during these, and not getting too caught up in the pace.  This is pretty much what I'll do during my warm up tomorrow.  I then threw in a couple of hard 45 second uphill efforts with a couple of minutes of rest in between, before finishing with a 60m all out sprint (I won't do that tomorrow).  During all of this, I really tried to mentally lean in to how I was running and how it felt.  I wanted it to be comfortable.

Tomorrow, the only time that I plan to look at my watch is during the first 400m, when I will focus on starting at about 7:15 pace.  The idea is not to start too fast or too hard, which I almost always do.  Whether I need to look at my watch or not is probably an interesting question, but I guess I don't quite trust myself yet when it comes to feeling my pace and correlating that to my effort.  However, the watch goes out the window at 400, when I will switch over to running based on how I feel.  For the remainder of that first mile, I want it to feel hard, but not too hard.  I'll gauge how I feel at 400m and endeavor to keep that feeling and let it get a little harder over the rest of the first mile.  When I hit the end of mile 1, it will be time to gradually increase my effort.  Again, the goal will not be to hit the turbochargers at this point, but to lean in to the feeling of running fast and hard.  It shouldn't feel easy, and it should start feeling uncomfortable.  The turnaround is halfway, and my next goal will be to get to the 2 mile mark with room to suffer more.

This will be the ultimate test of where I am mentally in regards to running a 5K.  Can I start to truly suffer at the two mile mark?  Do I have 7 minutes and 45 seconds of pain tolerance in me at that point?  Can I truly lean in to the suffering at that point and embrace it?  In many ways, it's only going to be about 7 minutes of agony, because the last 45 seconds will be my final push, if I still have that in me at that point.  I can do anything for 45 seconds?

The only thing that I will have on my watch after the first 400m tomorrow is distance.  Even that, I will try to avoid looking at.  What I'm really asking my mind and body to do tomorrow is to suffer for about 22 minutes.  The first 7 minutes should be quite manageable, but the last 15 should definitely hurt.  I've learned in the last couple of months that I can will my legs to go fast even when they don't want to.  Those last 20 meters during an uphill sprint when my legs want to shut off, but my mind keeps them going, is the feeling I'm going to want to latch onto during the last mile tomorrow.  It's a somewhat different feeling than the last couple miles of a successful Ironman, but in other ways, it's the same.  There will be less fatigue in my legs that will be slowing me down.  There will be greater pain and suffering in my mind, or as my coach likes to say, will feel like I'm putting my hands on hot coals.  That's the suffering that goes along with a 5K.

The positive thing is that when I finish, I know that I won't be laying on the ground for 45 minutes, like I have with my best Ironman races.  I'll have to sit or lay down for a few minutes at the most, and then I'll be ready to move on with my day.  22 minutes. That's all I'm asking of myself tomorrow.  That's what I'll be visualizing today.