Goal inflation

It relearned this lesson yesterday. It seems to come up for me a couple of times a year.

I heard Friday night about a 5k on Hilton Head Saturday morning that I had forgotten about. I thought if things were calm when I got into work I would have someone cover for me and I would go and run it instead of doing speedwork later in the day. ( the initial or REAL goal)

I got up Saturday morning and started thinking about how fast to start out on the run. (mistake # 1) I should have started at a little under 5k pace and built at the end if I felt okay. Instead I remembered an article I had read about going out fast in a 5k because it is too short of a race to slow that much. (WRONG).

I decided to start fast (mistake #2) and hold on as much as possible. By now I was confident that I could PR with this approach!

The race starts and I took off. at the 1/2 mile mark I looked at my Garmin and saw that my avg pace for the 1/2 mile was 5:45. My previous pr 5k pace was 6:55ish. Any runner can tell you the rest of the story. By the end of the first mile I was down to 6:15/mi. By the end of mile 2 it was 7:08 and the end of the 3rd 7:28 and my lungs were screaming. I was a full 30 seconds off of the PR which I probably could have broken had I started easya t around 7/mi and pushed the last mile.

Lesson learned:
Your first goal you set for an event is the REAL goal. sure in a 5k entered last minute it is not that big of a deal. But in an Ironman it is possible to notch your goals up several times durring the year as your fitness improves- leaving you in a very dangerous position at the starting line.

Side note: a painful morning running is still more fun than staying at work!

Train smart. HAVE FUN!

Jeffrey