Post-marathon to 5K

Four marathons in seven months.

I have been running races for 13 years and this is the first time I have done that.  With the exception of the first of the four, they were not my best (or my worst, though), but it is still an achievement
of which I am incredibly proud.

There is, however, one huge downside to spending seven months simply logging miles - speed gets lost.  

So after one recovery week following the Mad Marathon, I made it my business to start getting back to the grind of speed training.  That meant returning to Hal Higdon's four-week Advanced Post-Marathon program, which re-introduces speed work into training with weekend tempo runs and mid-week mile intervals. 

I couched the mid-week mile intervals within seven-mile runs, taking the first, third, fifth and seventh miles slowly; and doing the second, fourth and sixth at as fast a pace I could muster.  The goal was to increase the speed of those fast miles each week.  The first week was encouraging as I was off to a good start with fast miles averaging 6:17.  But the second week saw no improvement.  Thankfully, in the third week I ran my first sub-6 mile of the year, but even then, the second two took such a sharp downward turn that my average ended up at 6:09.

During the previous few years, I was doing so much speed work that I could regularly pump out sub-6s.  Now, a little older, a bit more banged up, and a lot more out of practice, I could barely squeak out a 5:59.  In my defense, this was all happening in the blazing heat of the summer.  Trying to do tempo runs and long runs in 90-degree heat can wipe you out.  Yes, I ran 13 miles, up and over huge hills in Boonton, N.J., on the day it was 95 degrees and sunny.

The 5K I selected (with much help from Gloria) for the culmination of the training program was the 21st annual Dover Renaissance Run in Dover, N.J., on Aug. 10.  Luckily, it was the first relatively cool weekend in a while.  I was not going into it expecting much, but with a temperature in the mid-60s and low humidity, I was ready to give it all I had.  

Because that is what you do at the short races - you do not just run three miles.  You lay it all out there.