Good news. I ran this Saturday’s 5K in 19 minutes flat! That is a lot better than I was expecting and puts me nicely on track for my goal this fall. The interesting thing is that I carved off 30 seconds from my PR without doing any interval training or tempo runs. I just ran pure mileage.
The only other thing that could have helped my time would have been the amount of running and racing I did in the snow this winter. You see, I ran this trail series out in Rockcut National Park that started with a 5K in December, a 10K in January, a 15K in February, and a very muddy 20K in March—all run on single track trails with about two to three hundred crazy runners. To train for it, I did part of my running in snow ranging from ankle deep to shin deep. My training run the weekend before the 15K consisted of running twelve miles, 10K of it through the snow.
Other than putting in the miles and the races over the winter, though, I have done no special training for the 5K. No 400m intervals on the track, no hill repeats, and definitely no tempo runs of any kind. Total mileage per week is currently at about 50 miles.
So what is the moral of the story? Simple: putting in the miles (especially in the snow!) can help you get faster; no need to visit the track.
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